As a result of the refusal of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to announce either his replacement or reappointment, the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Is-haq Oloyede, has handed over the baton of leadership to the agency’s Director of Information Technology Services, Fabian Okoro.
Mr Okoro is currently the most senior officer of the agency on ground.
He joined the services of JAMB in 1993 as a programmer and was appointed a deputy director in 2018, is said to be the most senior director in the establishment.
Other directors, including those of quality assurance department, and test development department, Mabel Egberaku and David Akanbi respectively, who also joined the agency in 1993, were reportedly appointed directors after Mr Okoro.
But the JAMB’s Director of Test Administration, Yusuf Lawal, who was employed by the agency in 1989, and is senior to Okoro in ranking, is currently on leave for training.
By handing over to Okoro, Oloyede followed the directive by the ministry of education.
EduCeleb.com understands that the ministry’s permanent secretary, Sonny Echono, late on Friday, had sent a memo to all chief executive officers, who had spent five years in office instructing them to hand over to the most senior directors in the affected agencies.
Oloyede, a professor of Islamics, was appointed as the registrar of JAMB on August 1, 2016, and replaced a professor of measurement, Dibu Ojerinde.
Mr Ojerinde is currently facing trial for financial misappropriation allegedly perpetrated while he held sway as the JAMB’s helmsman and during his reign at the National Examination Council (NECO).
Oloyede, who completed his five-year term of office at the weekend, has been praised by many for reportedly turning around the examination body, especially in the areas of financial discipline, accountability and war against examination malpractices.
About Mr Okoro
A 1992 graduate of Computer Science at the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Mr Okoro holds a Master of Science in Computer Science with option of internet computing from the University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom in 2007.
After working for JAMB as a programmer for three years, the new acting registrar was promoted as a senior programme in 1996 and became a chief system analyst in 2002 and an assistant director in 2006.
He is said to have contributed significantly to the reform in the information technology unit of the examination body having received nudge and support from Mr Oloyede who reportedly brought new innovations to the body’s operations since his appointment five years ago.
There are, thirteen other chief executive officers under the ministry of education who were sworn in alongside Mr Oloyede on August 2, 2016, and now share the same fate with the former registrar.
The other appointees whose tenure also ended at the weekend, include those of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed; Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Josiah Ajiboye; National Mathematical Centre, Steven Onuah; Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Hameed Boboyi; National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB), Ifeoma Isiugo-Abanihe, and Garba Azare of the National Teachers Institute (NTI).
Also affected are Michael Afolabi of the Librarian Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN); Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche of the National Institute of Nigerian Languages; Lanre Aina of National Library of Nigeria, Abba Haladu of the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education and Bashir Usman of Nomadic Education Commission.
In the case of Lillian Salami of the Nigerian Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, she left office about two years ago to become Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin and a substantive replacement hasn’t been made yet.
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