Senators from the South-East Geopolitical Zone have expressed concern over what they described as ‘curious and highly suspicious,’ Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination glitch in some centres in Lagos and especially in the whole of the South-East in the last Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) circle.
The South-East Caucus in a statement by its Chairman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, on Saturday in Abuja, said it would be disheartening to believe the conspiracy theory, “that there is a narrow agenda being pursued to deliberately shortchange and harm the future of our children.”
Though the caucus, after a careful assessment of the reports of the ugly incident, noted with cautious optimism the efforts being made to mitigate the near disaster, particularly the rescheduling of the examination, but warned that a future recurrence would be unacceptable.
Nonetheless, he said the senators welcomed the timely acceptance of fault as expressed through the open declaration of regrets and tearful apology by the JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede.
Notwithstanding, the lawmakers, according to Senator Abaribe, hope and warn that such display of penitence in public would not be an effort to mask a future sinister agenda aimed at harming the educational advancement of children of the South-East region.
“The so-called glitch as curious and suspicious as it were is enough to erode confidence and dangerously lower national pride among the future generation.
“The relevant national education drivers must recognise the inherent danger of injecting hateful politics and narrow parochial consideration in both policy enunciation and its implementations.
“That the glitch happened in the whole of South East raises pertinent questions that must be answered by JAMB to assuage the growing frustrations and fears among the people of the region particularly the children who are directly at the receiving end. We must pursue a Nigerian agenda and not a narrow one that will ultimately injure national unity
“Education remains one of the most important bedrocks of any society’s advancement. It is one major indices of development in every facet of life that can never be faulted. Education is a major pivot that triggers national development. Every child is entitled to it, therefore we must not play roulette with it? Abaribe declares.”
Abaribe said the caucus was at alert and under pressure as it unequivocally demanded firm assurance from JAMB and other relevant national educational policy drivers that there would never be a repeat of such an incident.
Discussion about this post