JAMB: Is The Age Controversy Still Raging?

By Bola BOLAWOLE

The Appeal Court gave a ruling in the case of the local government chairmanship tussle between the ruling PDP government and its APC predecessor government in Osun state: You thought that settled the matter, but it was the beginning of the melee with both sides claiming that the same judgment gave them victory. 

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When the court also ruled on the National secretaryship tussle of the PDP, both contestants, citing the same judgment, claimed victory. Who is the authentic leader of the Labour Party? The highest court in the land has ruled on the matter; yet, the  tussle is yet to be resolved with both sides claiming the apex court’s ruling awarded them victory.

These days you find it difficult to know what is happening: Is it the courts that are speaking from both sides of the mouth, leaving enough loopholes for everyone to exploit? In which case, the court, like Pontius Pilate, merely smartly washes its hand off, displeasing no side while pleasing none! Can’t judgments be given that are not ambiguous or that leave no room for multiple, duplicitous interpretations?

Should Nigeria’s presidency be rotated between the North and South? Northern politicians are duplicitous on this matter: whenever the presidency is in the South, they shout rotation at daggers drawn. But once the presidency is in their hands, they get reluctant to let go of it and begin to talk of merit – as if they can compete favourably with the South if all things are settled on merit! 

It is because they cannot compete favorably on equal terms with the South that the federal character and quota system were institutionalised to rob the South’s Peter to pay the North’s Paul.

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Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has been the worst since the Fourth Republic took off in 1999 and his incompetence shone brightly for all to see ever before he finished his first term; yet, in the spirit of rotation, he was suffered for another four years for him to complete his second term and leave the stage for power to rotate to the South. 

However, Northern politicians immediately began to scream “merit”! It took the implosion within the PDP to  prevent a continuation of the North in power in 2023. However bad the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is – and I do not honestly think it is half as bad as Buhari’s – the unwritten rule of rotational presidency dictates that he be allowed to have his two terms of four years each. The South must begin to learn from the North. But permit my digression!

I started out wanting to comment on the age controversy in admissions to our institutions of higher learning. One of my highly esteemed readers had again exhumed the corpse of age controversy, drawing attention to its application in the current 2025 JAMB admissions process. 

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I thought we had agreed that 18 years is the minimum required age for admission into our institutions of higher learning as clearly stated in the National Policy on Education. I thought we had also agreed that the policy was not new and neither the erstwhile Education minister nor JAMB was its author.

I thought we agreed that room be made for precocious children who are under the age once the evidence is beyond dispute. I thought we also advocated that our entire education system be re-jigged such that practically every Tom, Dick, and Harry of a child does not enter school early and finish secondary school early and be knocking on the door of universities at the age of 14, 15, 16, and 17. 

It would appear as if JAMB’s method of conducting the search for the (few) precocious children is what is raising this dust, probably out of a lack of understanding of the implementation module.

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Kindly read what follows; it was written by one of my highly esteemed readers. Sometime back when I took ill and my eyesight was affected, unpardonable errors littered my pages. It took no time for many of my readers to notice that something was amiss, one of them being the author of what you are about to read. 

He volunteered to be my proofreader and took the job upon himself gladly; discharging it pro bono, as lawyers would say. Even after I recovered, he has continued to serve and I call him “My Editor”. 

He reminds me of those wonderful wordsmiths with eagle eyes of yore – Nosa Osaigbovo of the defunct Sketch (where I began my journalistic odyssey), Dafe Onojowvo and Abayomi Ogundeji, both of The PUNCH. My editor’s name is Abiodun Adefisoye. Enjoy him! When I return, I will fire some parting shots.   

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“JAMB 2025: ANOTHER DISCORDANT TUNE?: I had made a post saluting the leadership attributes of the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, for owning up to the foibles that characterised this year’s #UTME and simultaneously lampooning the cheering crowd that applauded his teary apologies. The engaging conversation that the post has generated via comments and reactions is highly commendable!

“As a post-mortem, I was on the phone with a friend last night when the subject came up again for discussion. Interestingly, this friend’s son sat for the exam but has yet to have his results released. 

When I prompted my friend about the make-up exams that JAMB was planning to conduct, he said he doubted if his son would be involved BECAUSE THE REASON BEING BANDIED FOR NON-RELEASE OF HIS RESULTS WAS UNDERAGE. 

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I got curious! Underage, what? I thought that issue had reared its head and had been crushed and buried… I therefore didn’t agree with my friend. Since the concerned boy is an SS 3 student and registered for the JAMB exam through his school, I asked his dad to contact the headship of his son’s school, perhaps he could obtain an authoritative explanation for the seizure. He did.

“Guess what he was told? UNDERAGE! As if that wasn’t enough, the school principal said something like ‘all underage students were made to sign an undertaking of sorts that those of them who scored below 300 in the exams would have their results withheld and, probably, forfeited’! 

Now, this would lead me to raise some strategic posers, which I believe should help reset our thought process on this critical issue that has serious implications for millions of our young population:

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1. Under normal circumstances, what is the average age of secondary school leavers in today’s Nigeria? As a sequel, what percentage of them are up to 18 years of age, in juxtaposition to those who are below?

2. Admitted that making 18 the minimum entry age to institutions of higher learning for our children is a plausible policy because it helps boost their maturity index to cope with the new realities on campus. 

However, if we must recalibrate our admissions processes to fit into this, what tangible, workable gap-bridging programmes did we put in place to take care of the teeming masses who are caught in the transitory web? 

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Perhaps, officially re-introducing the Higher School Certificate programme of the 60s – 80s… would be a commendable stopgap, unlike the mushrooms of JUPEB or IJMB programmes largely mounted by individual institutions today with little or no government supervision/involvement. 

I recall that when we used to have Ghanaian teachers in Nigeria, my Literature-in-English teacher, Mr. Agamah, told us that Ghana (as of then) disapproved of students moving straight from secondary schools to universities, adding that students had to pass through a middle school, where they were prepared for university admissions.

3. Are we so fixated on compliance with the constitutional provisions of 18 years minimum age for university admissions that we wouldn’t mind sacrificing our dear children and mortgaging their future?

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Why can’t our legislature see reasons in effecting a prompt amendment of our laws to make for a downward review of the minimum entry age for university admissions to, say, 16, in consonance with today’s global realities?

4. In the aftermath of the hues and cries generated by this minimum age issue.. a matter that critical deserves screaming on the rooftops what the final resolution was, so that all concerned would have a clear picture of what is at stake and what to expect.

5. If my friend’s son’s story is true, what was (is) the thinking behind releasing the results of underage students who score 300 and above, and withholding the results of those whose scores fall below that threshold? Are we implying that the former are prodigies while the latter are slow learners? If yes, haven’t the glitches that characterised the conduct of the exams as admitted by JAMB put a lie to using that parameter to determine who are prodigious and who are phlegmatic?

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6. Finally, I presume that whoever writes an examination has an inalienable right to get his/her results. An examination body would rather disqualify a candidate upfront than qualify the candidate to participate in an exam but go on to disqualify him/her from obtaining his/her results”.

There are enough posers here for JAMB to answer! Or need I say more?

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