Professor Is’haq Olarewaju Oloyede – An Incorruptible Leader that Can Take Nigeria to the Promised Land!

In a nation where leadership’s access to a revenue generating parastatal is considered as an opportunity to arrogate the lion share of the so called national cake to such privileged serving officer, Is’haq Olarewaju Oloyede stands out as a rare gem of incorruptible leadership.

Hails from Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria, and born in October 1954, Professor Oloyede was a Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin before he was appointed as the Registrar and Chief Executive of Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB (JAMB) in 2016.

JAMB is the body that coordinates annual admission examination for aspiring students into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Every candidate of this JAMB exam pays certain amount of money to the JAMB for various services including the exam application itself. Hundreds of thousands of students across Nigeria sit for this JAMB exam annually. In 2020, 1.9 million candidates reportedly sat for JAMB exam.

 

 

Prior to the appointment of Professor Oloyede, his predecessor that was at the helm of the affairs of JAMB reportedly remitted only ₦50,752,544 to the coffers of the federal government of Nigeria for fiscal years 2010 through 2016 according to the PREMIUM TIMES. That was an average of ₦8,458,757 (eight million, four hundr

 

ed, fifty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty-seven naira) per annum. That sounded like a parastatal that was running at some profit, not deficit, thus an organization being managed well by the Nigerian standard. That was the general understanding until Oloyede took over the baton of leadership.

Soon after Oloyede took over, and in 2017 alone, without charging applicants anything extra, Oloyede reportedly remitted a whopping ₦5,000,000,000 (five billion naira) for just one fiscal year to the same coffers of the federal republic of Nigeria according to the PREMIUM TIMES. The story has remained astronomically positive ever since.

According to the revelations from the Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by the Premium Times, the Accountant General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria reportedly declared that the immediate predecessor of Professor Oloyede, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, whose leadership at the JAMB spanned between 2007 and 2016, remitted ₦11,522,808 in 2011; N25, 303,274 in 2013 and N13,926,462 in 2014. No remittance in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016.

In a stack contrast to the forgoing, and aside from the aforementioned five billion naira that Oloyede remitted in 2017 alone without any extra levy against the candidates, in 2018, Oloyede remitted another whopping ₦7.8 billion (seven point eight billion naira) as reported by the Nigeria Punch. In that same year, the Federal Government of Nigeria reportedly gave Oleyede ₦2.2 billion naira for JAMB’s capital projects, which appeared to have been the annual tradition predating Professor Oleyede’s exceptional leadership accountability style. Unlike his predecessor however, Oloyede not only refunded this ₦2.2 billion to the coffers of Nigeria in 2018 but also remitted an extra ₦5.6 billion towards the development of the most populous black nation in the world. It appeared that the leakages in the finance department of the JAMB that other leaders of the JAMB were unable to block or simply ignored were being aggressively plugged by Oloyede.

In 2019, and plausibly because of the sterling financial and leadership accountability of Oloyede, the Federal Government of Nigeria reduced the JAMB’s application fee for each candidate from ₦5,000 to ₦3,500. This was about 30% reduction in the main income generation power of the JAMB. This move significantly reduced financial burdens on hundreds of thousands of Nigerian families by cumulatively saving them about ₦3 billion by this cut alone. One would have expected that JAMB would respond negatively by remitting significantly less amount of money to the coffers of the government than the preceding year. But that was not to happen under the leadership of Oloyede, who appeared to have some magic wands for blocking the financial holes in the JAMB’s complex system. According to the International Center for Investigative Reporting, Oloyede still remitted another landmark amount of over seven billion naira to the coffers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the fiscal year 2019.

By May 2020, JAMB under the leadership of Prof. Oloyede had remitted another seven billion naira to the coffers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria while promising that the final remittance for the fiscal year of 2020 would be over seven billion naira after completing necessary audit as reported by the Nigerian Vanguard.

Aside from the unprecedented financial accountability, Prof. Oloyede also infused many other disciplinary measures into the JAMB’s operations resulting in better reliability of the exams conducted by this institution. Exam malpractice scores improved among other positive developments.

Following this staggering contrast in the accountabilities of this new leader and his predecessors, the federal government of Nigeria was left with no other alternative than investigating his predecessors. The then Finance Minister under President Buhari, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, wondered how Oleyede was able to generate so much money than ever before without increasing revenue generating strategies or charging the applicants extra fees from the same system that his predecessors’ remittances had always been seriously anemic when compared to his new model of accountability.

Even in the Nigerian system that is adjudged as one of the most corrupt in the world, Nigeria could not afford not to act based on the sterling record performances of Prof. Oloyede. In April 2020, Professor Dibu Ojerinde, the immediate predecessor of Professor Oloyede, had his own day of reckoning under the harmer of Nigerian judiciary by having numerous assets he was adjudged to have fraudulently acquired forfeited to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  

Professor Oloyede attended Progressive Institute, Agege, Lagos for his secondary education from 1969-1973 and later acquired Arabic knowledge at Arabic Training Centre Agege, Lagos, (Markaz) from 1973–1976 before proceeding to the University of Ibadan where he earned certificate in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1977. He bagged Bachelors of Arts degree with Distinction (First Class Hons) in 1981 in Islamic Studies from the University of Ilorin. He was later appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in the same University. In 1991, he added Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) in Islamic Studies to his degrees from the same University of Ilorin as reported in his online biography – http://ishaqoloyede.com/biography.php.

Prof. Oloyede, as reported in his online biography, was awarded several scholarships and prizes. These included, but not limited to, the Arab League prize for the best final year Certificate Student in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1977 at the University of Ibadan; Federal Government undergraduate merit award from 1979 to 1981; Department of Religions Award, University of Ilorin, 1981 and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Award, Unilorin also in 1981. He is a member of many professional societies and a Fellow of the Islamic Academy of Cambridge, United Kingdom; Fellow, Academy of Entrepreneurship; Member of Nigerian Association of Teachers of Arabic and Islamic Studies (NATAIS); Member of Editorial Board, Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, ABU, Zaria, etc. He was also a Former National President of the Unilorin Alumni Association (1995 and 1998). Prof. Oloyede was a National Vice-President of the Unilorin Alumni Association twice. He became a professor in 1995. He was a member of the University Governing Council; Students’ Disciplinary Committee; Revenue Yielding Committee; Honorary Degree and Monument Committee; etc. In 2005, former President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Prof. Oloyede as a co-secretary of the National Political Reform Conference. In 2006, the National Universities Commission on Educational Reforms in Nigeria appointed him as a Consultant.

Professor Oloyede was elected the Vice Chancellor of his Alma Mata, the University of Ilorin on the 15^th of October 2007, and he led that institution diligently through the year 2012. During this period, this university was ranked among the best in Africa. He his married and blessed with beautiful children.

In a nation where incorruptible leaders with opportunity to lead by example without succumbing to the retrogressive belief and habit of “if you can’t beat them, join them” are extremely difficult to come by; where meritocratic leadership is more needed than ever before; where getting rich quick syndrome trumps diligence and accountability; where our youths are fast believing that the most rewarding behavior is deceit; where the hope of the people is getting closer to the verge of being dashed unless something urgent is done fast; where millions languish in abject poverty and die prematurely of preventable deaths engendered by varieties of corrupt practices across the board; where every Nigerian with sixth sense wants to pay any price to access a “greener pasture” not because Nigeria is not green enough, but because corrupt leadership has sapped the nation out of her luster; where politics is now seen as profiteering corrupt business rather than a clarion call to selfless service; and where any opportunity of having access to money minting house like the JAMB is considered by the majority as a rare opportunity of selfishly plundering the commonwealth of our current and future generations, the species of Professor Is’haq Olarewaju Oloyede is truly a rare brand among the crop of Nigerian leadership.          

GraftWatch is pleased to feature Professor Is’haq Olarewaju Oloyede as our 2020 Incorruptible Leader of The Year that is worthy of being given a chance to lead Nigeria as our President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. GraftWatch believes that Oloyede will take Nigeria to the promised-land based on what he has been able to do as a leader of many Nigerian complex parastatals including, but not limited to, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board.