CPAN: Open Letter to The Leadership of The National Assembly

We extend our respectful regards to entire leadership of the National Assembly – The Senate and Federal House of Representative – while we applaud the achievements of the Federal Ministry of Education under the watchful eyes of Mallam Adamu Adamu especially for being deliberate in attending to urgent needs of indigent Nigerians who are mostly out the out school children, a fit that identifies with the Chief priorities of President Mohammadu Buhari absolutely dedicated in disrupting the norm in favour of the poor.

This is to call the attention of the leadership of the National Assembly towards the unwholesome and unprofessional activities of the registrar to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, (JAMB) especially in the management of the annual Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and relations with stakeholders that plays vital role in the delivery of this vital national service. Indeed Prof Ishaq Oloyede, in recent time got national recognition for the repatriation of seeming excess funds to the confers of government, this has only being so without the narrative of stakeholders who labour day and night to deliver the national project of e-testing aside the unprofessional practice of using the element of fear to administer his leadership at JAMB, especially through outsourcing of critical services to incompetent solution providers who receive unimaginable payment for contracts and conduct themselves in manners that attract disrepute in the guise of inefficiency to JAMB staff and JAMB.

This is coming at the instance of CPAN (the acronym for Computer Based Test Center Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria) the body with the mandate of over 600 private owners of e-test/e-study centers in Nigeria duly registered with the cooperate affairs commission and have individually invested over 25million naira in ICT infrastructure/equipment dedicated to the reshaping of Education in Nigeria using technology. The cumulative investment of predominantly private CPAN members is over 15billion naira.

Our cry today stems from the high handedness, discrimination, criminalization, victimization, oppression, intimidation, dehumanization and scandalizing treatments experienced from Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the present honourable registrar to JAMB.

It can be recalled that 2013 and 2015, JAMB transited for paper and pencil testing to electronic testing under the leadership of Prof Dibu Ojerinde with the experimental revelation that technology drastically cut off cost of papers, printing and logistics in conveyance of same. Prof Ishaq Oloyede simply inherited a perfect system with no record of a phase weighed down by the era of huge cost of paper and pencil testing – accounting for the seeming miracle of repatriation of funds in billions to the Treasury Single Account with no recourse to the welfare of the predominantly private ICT firms delivering this national service who are evidently short changed in a manner that looks like Peter is robbed to pay Paul.

CPAN had since 2016 made various presentations to the JAMB registrar, Federal Ministry of Education and also the national assembly, crying out for close considerations to be made on the plight of CBT center proprietors in the country. Doing this, the leadership of CPAN had suffered selective victimization by Prof. Ishaq Oloyede who mysteriously manufactures false criminal charges especially on whoever is the National President of the association. CPAN, on the 21st of July, 2019, deliberately elected Mr Maxwell Chiadikobi Akwuruoha whose centers both in Nasarawa and Abuja had served the nation through JAMB with no record of exam malpractice or technical failures, only for the registrar in his old method and as expected manufacture none existing charges, character assassination, use of stooges and criminalization.

While we call on the leadership of the national assembly, through the relevant committees to wade into this matter, we reiterate the passionate appeal of CPAN are as follows.

i. That a document of relationship be put in place to define the roles of CBT proprietors as well as that of JAMB and her privies to the extent that exam malpractice and technical issues are envisaged and not the annual random arbitrary policies selectively applied and intended for discrimination and victimization.

ii. That the rental for the annual UTME examination be increased from six hundred naira per candidate to one thousand five hundred naira, as energy and FOREX has happened since 2013 when this rental was stipulated, as such review would make the rendering of e-testing service attractive and worthwhile.

iii. That JAMB should concentrate with its responsibilities of admissions and matriculation as against overt effort to criminalize CPAN in a bid to control services to NNPC, Customs, Immigration, Police and in recent time NIMC. The aggressive ambitions of the registrar to dictate activities at the CBT centers are only a disservice to the nation, especially where his high handedness had militated against digital literacy in Nigeria.

iv. That exam malpractice and technical issues needs to be properly tackled through proper engagement of ad hoc staff who though are paid far more against serving JAMB staff but are reckless in manners that attract discredit to the board. Proper and transparent recruitment based on merit would check incompetence and character deficiencies.

v. That the decree that established JAMB, specifically in its article two sub article m needs to be considered to the extent that the body of CBT center proprietors are today such relevant stakeholder described in that article to the extent that the vacuum in the JAMB board needs to be filled up to avoid situations where the board gets input to improve its her services on the pages of newspapers given the fact that CPAN had written severally but to be ignored, only for the JAMB registrar to resort to intimidation, victimization, false accusations, criminalization and discrimination against whoever dares to make observations.

It is our firm believe that the appeals of CPAN would be given adequate consideration, especially as the objective is to advance service in the education sector using technology and giving the very best to the Nigerian child.

Accept our esteemed regards.

Maxwell Chiadikobi Akwuruoha
President