THE Nigerian Senate, constitutionally empowered to legislative for common good in May publicly declared that there is no known law restricting university admission age to either 16 or 18 years as being propanganded by the duo of Education Minister Mamman Tahir and JAMB strongman, Ishaq Oloyede and now being forced on both public and private Nigerian universities to deny qualified candidates, admission.
At the risk of being flagged a bellicose ethnic jingo, I’m yet to hear of a northerner being cut off by the minimum age agenda. Is South the target? Time will tell. Jesus assures in Luke 8:17 that all hidden would be exposed.
Oloyede’s JAMB began amplifying the non-existent admission minimum age after a businesswoman, Mrs Ifeanyi Eke, in March this year, filed a N100m suit against the Board and three others before the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged unsolicited and inappropriate text messages sent to her and her 15-year-old daughter, in the course of registering her for the April UTME. A peace offering from JAMB would not move her.
Joined as co-respondents in the suit are Island Computer College Limited, one Mr Jibola, and Regina Bassey.
Since the institution of the suit, Oloyede has sustained what would amount to a grudge campaign against the unyielding woman, her innocent daughter and all innocent Nigerian students who are brilliant enough for admission but caught in the seeming ego-war between JAMB and Mrs. Eke, enlisting supprt where he could and with massive media blitz, rallying the support of unlikely backers like ASUU which has forever been in trenches for varsity autonomy.
At every turn in this admission cycle, the so-called minimum age policy has remained Oloyede’s battle-cry and his most-prolific recruit in the campaign, is Adamawa-born Mamman, who almost succeeded in delaying more destinies with the 18-year bar until providence spoke for the countless Southern admission seekers who would have been affected if he wasn’t crowded out at the recent Abuja stakeholders’ meeting. Fortunately enough, many private universities are also disregarding the 16-year peg. Hopefully, the matter would be judicially resolved.
May 3, 2024, the Nigerian Senate was unequivocal about the non-existence of lawful minimum age for university admission in Nigeria, noting that Mamman and Oloyede’s campaign remained just their opinion.
Senator Adeyemi Adaramodu, the chairman of the Senate Committee on media and publicity, said the matter was yet to be legislated upon
As I write this, nothing on ground shows a shift and a ministerial pronouncement will never replace a proper process of lawmaking. And to think Mamman is a senior lawyer.
Adaramodu even provided a window for the duo to make their minimum admission age campaign legal, lawful and constitutional but public officials are gods on their own and President Tinubu hasn’t shown better capacity than his predecessor in supervision. This is where you want to acknowledge Aremu, the one who would write a scathing public letter to his own AG, Kanu Agabi SAN, compelling him to withdraw a suspicious nolle. Without making it a properly-debated government policy, by now Oloyede and Mamman would be answering open queries from a President Olusegun Aremu Matthew Okikiola Obasanjo for this national fraud. But this is President Bola Tinubu and Yoruba will always warn about comparing children, with “bi a ba fi omo we omo a lu ikan pa” (not translating because both are Yoruba elders.
Hear how Senate through Adaramodu burst Oloyede and Mamman’s bubble three months back; “By the time the senate resumes, whoever wants to bring that one (minimum age for admission) out to make it a law will now bring it and then the procedures will take place. You can bring whatever to the floor in the form of a bill. There’s going to be a public hearing.
“All the stakeholders will sit down and talk about it. Parents, teachers, legislators, civil society organisations, and foreign organisations. We will sit down and we talk. Even if they say that the minimum age should be 30 or 12, we will all discuss it at an open forum. So it’s still a comment which cannot be taken to be the law.”
The senate spokesperson also dismissed insinuations that the minister of education had instructed the leadership of JAMB not to release results of applicants below 18 years.
“There is nothing like that. When the prospective student bought their forms, there were no such conditions. So when you have bought your forms under one condition, that condition cannot be initiated along the line until the current set of candidates have been successfully attended to.
“When the next engagement is to take place, then if it is brought even as an executive bill or personal or private bill or the public brings it as a bill, the National Assembly will now sit down and then allow it to go to the crucible of lawmaking.
“This is a country, this is Nigeria. So all of us will sit down and deliberate. So far, it is just a mere comment. It is not law yet.”
Yet, without any legislation Mamman and Oloyede are blackmailing even private varsities to comply with what is merely their “opinion”. In a supposed federal system of government, states and their universities should not even care a hoot about Mamman and his opinion. Even JAMB’s entrance examinations should be restricted to federally-owned varsities. Maybe someday, a state would wake up to this reality and drag FG to Supreme Court for resolution of responsibility boundaries.
Though I personally believe Oloyede is on a revenge mission, he still has a better moral locus to ventilate whatever agenda than Mamman, a serial admission law breaker as the Vice Chancellor of privately-owned Baze University, Abuja. In fact, if due diligence is part of the due process for ministerial screening, he shouldn’t have been anywhere near a serious federal cabinet, let alone the education ministry.
As Baze’s VC, Mamman kept breaching the rules guiding admission into Law programme until he forced the Council of Legal Education to ban the institution for five years last year.
On Wednesday I called the institution to check if admission was on for Law, the lady at the other end, said no, meaning that prospective Law applicants would have to look elsewhere because of Mamman’s recklessness. Under him, APC’s bigwigs like Rotimi Amaechi were routinely awarded Law admission to the detriment of young Nigerians. At Baze, Mamman simply shut the gate of opportunity against hundreds for five years. Now, he wants to shut out thousands more. Is this an agenda against the Nigerian child?
In a stinging rebuke dated 25th November 2023, the Acting Secretary and Director of Administration of the Nigerian Law School, Ms Aderonke Osho, said, “At its Quarterly Meeting held on November 23, 2023, the Council of Legal Education (CLE) presided over by its Chairman, Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, OFR considered the report of the Accreditation panel to the Faculty of Law, Baze University, Abuja.
“It emerged from the findings by the Panel led by the Director-General, Nigerian Law School, Prof Isa Hayatu Chiroma, SAN, that: Baze University consistently and most flagrantly had contravened its admission quota of 50 students per session as approved by the Council of Legal Education with the result that the Faculty is currently having a backlog of over 347 law students waiting to be admitted into the Nigerian Law School.
“Since 2017 the Council of Legal Education had grappled with the excesses of Baze University by admitting over 750 law students which ordinarily would have taken about 15 years of admission based on the quota allotted to the University.
“Baze University runs a three (3)-year LL.B programme for some UTME candidates without the approval of National Universities Commission (NUC), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB and Council of Legal Education.”
“Under the NUC Minimum Benchmark Academic Standard (BMAS) for law degree programme in Nigerian Universities, Law is a five (5)-year programme for UTME candidates and four (4)-year for Direct Entry students.
“The Council of Legal Education after thorough consideration of these infractions resolved as follows: The imposition of a moratorium on admission of law students to the Faculty of Law, Baze University, Abuja, with immediate effect;
“The moratorium will last in the first instance for a period of 5 years and may be renewed if no satisfactory action is taken to remedy the situation.
“The Council in the interest of the innocent students, parents and guardians will use the 5 year period to find ways to deal with the backlog of law students admitted by Baze University in excess of its admission quota.
“Follow-up visits will be paid to the university to ascertain the extent of the measures it has taken to remedy the anomalies observed during the accreditation visit.
“The National Universities Commission (NUC), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Parents, guardians, prospective applicants, and members of the public are hereby put on notice on the status of Baze University Abuja and its faculty of law.’
There are things Yoruba believe should not come from the mouth of some people, if they have a modicum of conscience. How can a man so indicted lead a supposed change agenda. And the minister had the temerity to call young Nigerian undergraduates out as the problem. Is it because Nigerians don’t always bother about where these funny public officers are coming from?
Then there is this Ike Neliaku fellow who became an aide to a minister at just 20, calling graduates in their 20s, from Nigerian universities, empty. And he is supposed to be number one Public Relations person in Nigeria.
Minus the obviously-induced bandwagon, it will be uncharitable to dismiss the entire argument for age regulation in the admission process, but you can’t build something on nothing. An illegal noble act remains what it is; a fraud.
READ ALSO: Flooding: Oyo Rep, Odidi-Omo, begins channelisation of Anfani river