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OPINION: JAMB, Glitches And An Inter-tribal War

Published

12 months ago

May 19, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

The enemy is behind everything that happens to anyone here. In electronics and computing, a glitch is an unexpected software or hardware malfunction. Here, you have your phone frozen or your app crashed, you respond cursing the devil that is responsible for the trouble. You suffer network failure, you hit or tap the desk and pray against the spirit of lost connections. Or you simply blame the village witch, and the next-door neighbour whose jealous, suspicious eyes you’ve been seeing in your dreams. You bind and curse them all —and all their generations.

At exactly 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 2, 2023, thousands of students across China prepared to take the Advanced Placement (AP) Chinese Language and Culture exam. One after another, they logged into the AP testing platform. For some, the exam began smoothly—they managed to answer a few listening questions—then their screens abruptly froze. Like today’s dog expertly pursuing today’s hare, the obedient citizens of the tech world did what the manuals advised troubled users to do: log out and try again, standard troubleshooting step. Many logged out and attempted to sign back in. But the system told them no: “Access denied. This account is already in use.” Nothing they did resolved the glitch. They remained logged out and locked out – and stranded.

The experience was not a one-centre fiasco. The malfunction was widespread; students from over 700 high schools were impacted. A makeup examination was later organized for those affected.

China is home to 56 officially recognized ethnic groups—a fine mix of cultures, languages, and traditions. But when the AP Chinese exam system glitched, no one pointed fingers at anyone’s ethnicity. No teacher or senator screamed: “Glitch caused by majority Han to retard the progress of the Hui.” There was no binding the devil and cursing the enemy. The problem was simply taken for what it was —a glitch, a technical chaos.

JAMB discovered that an unfortunate glitch happened to a part of its 2025 exam and explained how it happened; it offered apologies and remedies. But some people say the JAMB glitch was not an accident; they say it was a carefully designed plot by the Yoruba, led by JAMB’s Professor Ishaq Oloyede to deny Igbo children university education.

Nigeria is an impossible country. Oloyede is an Egba man from Abeokuta, therefore he must be carrying out a Yoruba agenda against their historical southern rival across the Niger. That is what some people say in rooms and verandas and on rooftops. I gasped reading very enlightened people, even respected top media people, entering the fray, blasting the walls of reason.

Well, it turned out that the glitch affected more candidates in Lagos (a Yoruba state) than the total number of the victims in the South-East. In Lagos, there were 206,610 victim-candidates; the whole of the five South-East states had 173,397. Could the Yoruba have hated their neighbours so much that they would add their own part of the earth to the scorched? Only a suicide bomber would not mind inflicting more harm on himself than on his target. And suicide bombing is not a Western Nigerian delicacy.

Read the “moth in the hardware” story in the evolution epic of the computer. Anything machine can malfunction at any point and caused by anything. That is why it is called a machine, an invention by man. Read the Greek origin of the word and its long journey to today’s form and meaning.

The genius called Thomas Edison when he encountered technical hiccups which he called ‘bugs’ in his inventions, famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Science historians say Edison tackled the bugs and hiccups in his inventions through a combination of rigorous experimentation, documentation, and iterative problem-solving. I am almost sure that our scientists and engineers are part of this JAMB controversy, not as professionals proactively in search of solutions to future glitches, but as public or closet ethnic champions.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The Shame Of Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa Road

I read a report credited to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The chairman of ASUU-UNN, Comrade Óyibo Eze, told newsmen in Nsukka on Wednesday that the massive failure, which he claimed mostly affected candidates from the South-East, was a deliberate attempt by JAMB to stop children from the zone from getting higher education.

“JAMB knows that children from the South-East must score higher before they can get admission, whereas their counterparts in some parts of the country will use a 120 JAMB score to get admission to read medicine at universities in their area. In the JAMB recently released result, out of 1,955,069 candidates who sat for the 2025 examination, over 1.5 million candidates scored less than 200, and the majority of these are from the South -East and Lagos State, where many Igbos reside,” he said.

Nsukka’s ASUU reduced a national disaster to a glib tribal talk. It even added Lagos to its sphere of tribal influence. Jesus said: “It is finished.” Until I read that news report, I had thought that ASUU (of any branch) was what we thought it was: an association of intellectuals. Now we know. “If gold rusts, what shall iron do? For if a priest, upon whom we trust, be foul, no wonder a layman may yield to lust.” Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote those lines in ‘The Canterbury Tales’ apparently had ASUU-UNN in mind.

The union should have left such cheap tribal talk to arrogance of ignorance and those who revel in it. There is a reason why university teachers are called intellectuals. “An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.” That was Albert Camus in ‘The Enigma of the Universe’ (1948). If you are called an intellectual, your scent must be self-awareness; your breath, critical thinking; your thoughts, introspection. Psychologist John H. Flavell called it meta-cognition — thinking about thinking. A union of university teachers which failed to question its own assumptions, and neglected an analysis of its reasoning before taking a stand on a key national issue puts all branches of knowledge to shame.

A teacher should never be found “in the thick of the hoi polloi”, saying what the unwashed, the unthinking are saying. Or, maybe we overrate some people. Or, should I say William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the US ‘National Review’ magazine, was right in his popular political preference for the crowd over the caste of the learned: “I’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University.” If anyone holds that same opinion today of the Nigerian ivory tower, the person would be justified.

I have my own grouse with JAMB, and this is on the unresolved issue of those it calls underage candidates. I wrote about it last year. Their results are withheld this year. There is a subsisting court judgment which nullified the age restriction policy authored by JAMB. The order issued by the Delta State High Court, to the best of my knowledge, has not been upturned by any higher court. Besides, if you would not give these young people admission, you should have programmed your system not to accept their applications, fees and all. So, if there would be an uproar, it should be for victims of that policy. What we have on air, instead, is a war of tribes and tongues over a glitch that has extracted apologies from the JAMB boss and remedies given the victims.

Shakespeare’s King Lear says “I am a man/More sinn’d against than sinning.”

We should have enough of people reading tribal meanings into anything and everything they are involved in. What I write here is a debugging attempt, an effort at telling ethnic moths to remove themselves from our relays; an attempt at protecting the system from human glitches.

Or, maybe we should just pack up Nigeria since we cannot live a minute without threatening each other. And over what? Over glitches that can happen even under an angel’s watch.

News

Xenophobic Attacks: Oshiomhole Tells FG To Retaliate Against South African Companies In Nigeria

Published

5 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

Senator Adams Oshiomhole has called on the Federal Government to retaliate against South African businesses operating in Nigeria following the recent attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.

Speaking during plenary on Tuesday, Oshiomhole said the Federal Government should consider revoking the working license of South African owned companies such as MTN and DSTV.

He argued that Nigeria must respond firmly to what he described as persistent hostility against its citizens.

“I am not going to shed tears. If you hit me, I hit you. I think it is appropriate in diplomacy. It is an economic struggle,” Oshiomhole said.

He argued that while some South Africans accuse Nigerians of taking their jobs, Nigerians should return home and take over employment opportunities created by major South African companies operating in the country, including MTN and DSTV.

“When we hit back, the President of South Africa will not only talk but will also go on his knees to recognise that Nigeria cannot be intimidated.

“We will not condone any life being lost. If a crime has been committed under the South African law they have the right to bring any such person to justice, but to kill our people as if we are helpless, we will not allow that,” Oshiomhole added.

DAILY POST reports that several Nigerians in South Africa have reportedly been attacked, and their businesses destroyed, in ongoing xenophobic attacks in the country.

News

IGP Orders Officers Display Name Tag On Uniform, Gives Update On State Police

Published

5 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Tunji Disu, has ordered all police personnel to always have their name tags on their uniforms for easy identification.

Disu disclosed that only police personnel who are undercover are exempted from displaying their name tags.

Speaking on Tuesday, Disu said: “All police officers should have their name tags. All of us on the high table have our names apart from the undercover among us so if you look at all the Commissioners of Police we have our name tags, so it’s not our standard.

News

Court Orders SERAP To Pay DSS Operatives N100m For Defamation

Published

10 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered a non-governmental organization, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, to pay N100 million as damaged to two operatives of the Department of the State Services, DSS, for unjustly defaming them in some publications.

The court also ordered SERAP to tender public apologies to the defamed officers,
Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, in two national newspapers, two television stations and its website.

Besides, the organization was also ordered to pay the two operatives N1 million as cost of litigation and 10 percent post-judgment interest annually on the judgment sum until it’s fully liquidated.

Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory gave the order on Tuesday while delivering judgment in a N5.5 billion defamation suit instituted against SERAP by the DSS operatives.

The judge found SERAP liable for unjustly defaming the two DSS operatives with allegations that they unlawfully invaded its Abuja office, harassed and intimidated its staff, in September 2024.

In the offending publication on its website and Twitter handle, SERAP alleged that the two operatives unlawfully invaded and occupied its office with sinister motives.

The judge held that the publication was in bad taste especially from an organization established to promote transparency and accountability, as nothing in the publication was found to be truthful.

The DSS staff had listed SERAP as 1st defendant in the suit marked CV/4547/2024. SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, was listed as the 2nd defendant.

In the suit, the claimants – Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele – accused the two defendants of making false claims that they invaded SERAP’s Abuja office on September 9, 2024..

Counsel to the DSS, Oluwagbemileke Samuel Kehinde, had while adopting his final address in the mater urged the judge to grant all the reliefs sought by his client in the interest of justice.

He admitted that although the names of the two claimants were not mentioned in the defamation materials, they had however established substantial circumstances that they are the ones referred to in the published defamation article by SERAP on its website.

The counsel submitted that all ingredients of defamation have been clearly established and the offending publication referred to the two officials of the secret police.

However, SERAP, through its counsel, Victoria Bassey from Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, law firm, asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that the two claimants did not establish that they were the ones referred to in the alleged defamation materials.

She said that SERAP used “DSS officials” in the alleged offending publication, adding that the two claimants must establish that they are the ones referred to before their case can succeed.

Similar arguments were canvassed by Oluwatosin Adefioye who stood for the second defendant, adding that there was no dispute in the September 9, 2024 operation of DSS in SERAP’s office.

He said that since SERAP in the publication did not name any particular person, the claimants must plead special circumstances that they were the ones referred to as the DSS officials.

Besides, he said that there is no organization by name Department of State Services in law, hence, DSS cannot claim being defamed adding that the only entity known to law is National Security Agency.

The claimants had in the suit stated that the alleged false claim by SERAP has negatively impacted on their reputation.

The DSS also stated, in the statement of claim, that, in line with the agency’s practice of engaging with officials of non-governmental organisations operating in the FCT to establish a relationship with their new leadership, it directed the two officials – John and Ogunleye – to visit SERAP’s office and invite them for a familiarization meeting.

The claimants added that in carrying out the directive, John and Ogunleye paid a friendly visit to SERAP’s office at 18 Bamako Street, Wuse Zone 1, Abuja on September 9 and met with one Ruth, who upon being informed about the purpose of the visit, claimed that none of SERAP’s management staff was in the country and advised that a formal letter of invitation be written by the DSS.

John and Ogundele, who claimed that their interactions with Ruth were recorded, said before they immediately exited SERAP’s office, Ruth promised to inform her organisation’s management about the visit and volunteered a phone number – 08160537202.

They said it was surprising that, shortly after their visit, SERAP posted on its X (Twitter) handle – @SERAPNigeria – that officers of the DSS are presently unlawfully occupying its office.

The claimant added, “On the same day, the defendants also published a statement on SERAP’s website, which was widely reported by several media outfits, falsely alleging that some officers from the DSS, described as “a tall, large, dark-skinned woman” and “a slim, dark skinned man,” invaded their Abuja office and interrogated the staff of the first defendant (SERAP).

John and Ogundele stated that “due to the false statements published by the defendants, the DSS has been ridiculed and criticised by international agencies such as the Amnesty International and prominent members of the Nigerian society, such as Femi Falana (SAN)”.

“Due to the false statements published by the defendants, members of the public and the international community formed the opinion that the Federal Government is using the DSS to harass the defendants.”

They added that the defendants’ statements caused harm to their reputation because the staff and management of the DSS have formed the opinion that the claimants did not follow orders and carried out an unsanctioned operation and are therefore, incompetent and unprofessional.

The claimants therefore prayed the court for the following reliefs: “An order directing the defendants to tender an apology to the claimants via the first defendant’s (SERAP’s) website, X (twitter) handle, two national daily newspapers (Punch and Vanguard) and two national news television stations (Arise Television and Channels Television) for falsely accusing the claimants of unlawfully invading the first defendant’s office and interrogating the first defendant’s staff.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N5 billion as damages for the libellous statements published about the claimants.

“Interest on the sum of N5b at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of judgment until the judgment sum is realised or liquidated.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N50 million as costs of this action.”