By Ayorinde Oluokun

Former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has said the most painful experience he had in office was seeing parents’ involvement in examination malpractices for their wards.

Oloyede, who handed over to a new Registrar of JAMB last Friday said this in an interview on Arise Television programme, ThisDay Live on Sunday.

Oloyede who was reacting to questions from host of the programme, Reuben Abati, on his experience as the helmsman of JAMB for 10 years said the candidates taking the examinations are not the problem of the examination body, but their parents who always attempted to help them game the system.

To me, the most painful period of my experience in JAMB had to do with the level of involvement of parents in organization of examination malpractice. They are introducing their wards, their children to the world of crime. I have no difficulty, and I think most of the candidates are not problematic.

“The problem are the parents, and that every time I was confronted with the reality of what parents were doing, most of the time, I became very emotional about it because I always felt that how on earth will people hate themselves, hate their future to this level? Because it’s like even if you have deficiency, you wouldn’t want to pass the deficiency to the next generation,” Oloyede said.

Oloyede said candidate engaging in various forms of examination malpractices is not the problem of JAMB, citing the case of Anambra student, Ejikeme Mmesoma who forged a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result in 2023.

“Most of the things that people see see about us, and they are not important, like the Mmesoma case you referred to. Mmesoma was just sensationalized by a group of people who felt they wanted to defend her. Well, we’ve met more than 10 Mmesoma cases. Even last year, somebody still attempted something like that.

“We deal with that. We resolve situation. It was a normal thing to us. But unfortunately, the sensation that came along with Mmesoma made it unique to others who are outside the institution.

“So, for me, it was a fine period, and the only period when I would be at my lowest was whenever I confronted parents with their pranks, with what they do, and how involved they are in planning to introduce their children and wards into criminality.

The former JAMB Registrar also said the alleged snake swallowing of money in JAMB was sensationalized and was one of the things that were difficult for him to correct in public.

“The snake matter did not occur when I was there. It was just that I had the fortune of misfortune that I had to address it. The matter had occurred before I assumed office, and it’s just that the registrar of JAMB, I had to deal with the matter, and I thank God the way I dealt with the matter, because I insisted when the matter was being treated, I insisted that, look, we must record, we must have it on tape, because it was unbelievable.

“There was no snake, but it was unbelievable to us that somebody could say that. But when the matter became the reality of it was that the person was almost denying it, if not that we recorded. Because even myself, I would have disbelieved myself if we did not have the tape, the recording of the narration of what happened. But that’s part of the fun. I regarded that as part of the fun and part of it.

“Some people will say, ‘Oh, snakes were swallowing naira in JAMB,’ and they know really that was just a creation of a mind. And many people took it literally, and they believed that snakes swallow naira. I think they were also part of the fun. The reality was that that never happened.