January 16, (THEWILL) – The Editorial Board of NextMoney, Nigeria’s foremost financial magazine, has selected the Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Is’haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, as its Person of the Year 2021.
In a statement signed by the Editor-In-Chief, Mr Ray Echebiri, the magazine stated that its choice of Oloyede as Person of the Year was informed by his relentless and uncompromising pursuit of academic excellence in Nigeria, and his unwavering sense of transparency and accountability in public service.
As Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Oloyede pursued academic excellence as though his whole life depended on it. Concomitantly, Unilorin became the most sought-after institution by candidates seeking admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. And soaring on the wings of academic excellence feathered by him, Unilorin’s ranking among world universities has remained on the upward trajectory.
As Registrar/Chief Executive of JAMB, Oloyede is leaving no stone unturned as he relentlessly and avowedly pursues academic excellence by ensuring that admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria is transparent and credible.
Quietly and steadily, he is leading a revolution in the Nigerian educational system, with the intention of implanting academic excellence, especially at the tertiary level. The overall objective is to ensure that no candidate without the requisite academic qualification and competence will find himself or herself on the campus of any tertiary institution in the country as a student.
He is doing this by conducting a very credible, transparent and fraud-free Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and by ensuring that admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria is based on merit.
Oloyede was appointed Registrar/Chief Executive of JAMB by President Muhammadu Buhari in August, 2015, for a term of five years in the first instance. He was reappointed for a second term of five years in 2021, based on his outstanding performance during his first term.
Five years or so down the line, he has not only turned around JAMB, but also clearly indicated that he will take it to the very height of international standard and make it non-secondus in managing admissions into higher institutions of learning in Nigeria.
Quite significant in his list of achievements so far is JAMB’s new sense of public accountability and transparency manifesting in the annual remittance of surplus revenue to the Federal Government in the last five years – a phenomenon not associated with the Board in the past decades. With this, JAMB has become a role model in public accountability, transparency and effective management and administration of human and material resources.
Another significant achievement of Oloyede is the introduction of technology in the conduct of the annual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and administration of admission processes. Through this revolutionary approach, all the embarrassing examination malpractices hitherto associated with the UTME are now becoming historical footnotes.
With the introduction of the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS), the renowned academician has cleaned up the Augean Stable of admission process into higher institutions of learning in the country. With CAPS, the issue of illegal admissions has been rolled into the realm of history. This is definitely impacting the quality of students admitted into the country’s tertiary institutions. The ultimate outcome will be the production of academically sound graduates who can contribute meaningfully to Nigeria’s economic growth and development.
“In the forthcoming special edition of NextMoney, the long list of achievements of Prof Is’haq Oloyede will be made bare,” the publishing company said in the statement.
About the Author
Anthony Awunor, is a business correspondent who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics (UNILAG). He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria Kaduna State. He lives in Lagos.
