Why are we still keeping JAMB?

Ikeep wondering why the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is still standing even in the face of challenges. Anybody with a sense of objectivity knows that JAMB has outlived its usefulness and needs to be consigned to the bins of history.

How can one rationalize the report by the National Bureau of Statistics, which stated that over nine million candidates who sat for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination in the last six years could not gain admission into tertiary institutions across the country?

To anybody who believes in human development and securing a brighter future for our youths, such information is unacceptable. What it means is that JAMB, instead of helping parents and government to take the youths out of the streets, is in fact doing the reverse.

During the last registration exercise, many candidates experienced a lot of difficulties, causing many to protest.

The policy summersault which has become second nature to JAMB also gnaws the heart of concerned Nigerians.

Today it is paper-pencil test (PPT) and tomorrow it is computer based test (CBT) and back to paper -pencil test. Which serious organization operates without thinking through its policy? The body came out with the story of examination hour being reduced from three to two hours, saying it is in alignment with global best practices.

I will not be surprised if the narrative changes tomorrow, with the body saying it has increased the hours to four or five. How can we be serious about university autonomy when it is JAMB that decides who gets admission? Again, when JAMB talks of global best practices in reducing the hours of its examination, what happens to the university autonomy which is what is obtainable from America to Australia and SouthAfrica to Singapore? Are we not circumventing global best practice with a single body holding students to ransom in a country that holds claim to federalism? Why do we need a central body to admit students into state and private universities? Is this not Unitarianism? Would it not be anachronistic to still allow JAMB to operate in a democratic dispensation that mouths federalism?

What are we still doing with a body that cannot deliver on its statutory mandate of finding spaces for qualified Nigerians into tertiary institutions? Is it not time we beheaded the behemoth that has become a dream killer as far as those seeking admission are concerned? a ray of light, can dispel the darkness of doubt threatening to envelope her.

There is also the lesson that, once convinced of the relevance of their plans, our governments must exercise the resolve to follow them through despite criticisms, provided they do not act outside the law and can show proof of the projected results in the long run as in the case of the Abuja airport.

Then there is the lesson that our public servants should be made to face the music for failing to deliver: The need to save themselves from the attendant shame can be a spur for personal success which can translate into success for our country.

The final lesson from the Abuja airport rehabilitation and timely reopening is that we can have a far more functional country if we can replicate that efficiency with many more projects and in other sectors nationwide.