FOR those celebrating the rivulets from the public tearing-up of JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede over the recent UTME fiasco as an uncommon contrition from a senior public official that should win him more acclaim and not slam, his insistence that the do-over should go ahead immediately, leaving just about 24 hours for affected candidates, some thousands of miles away from their centres, to participate, defeats likely positive deliverables and derivables from the public act. Even in the confession dock, Oloyede’s well-advertised hubris was still in full gear. A man that can’t be persuaded to embrace better valuation of issues will eventually tank.

Last Monday, Educate CEO Alex Onyia who compelled the UTME review was on Arise TV, questioning the rush for the resit and disclosing how Oloyede’s JAMB again, refused advice to push the retake forward for candidates to have enough time to prepare. The low turnout he predicted was accurate and Oloyede’s JAMB is mopping up again. Pride, indeed, goeth before a fall.

I know Oloyede is a father of adult children and possibly a grandfather, but you would think he has a perpetual axe to grind with Nigerian youths especially the gifted, who are not of his prescribed age limit for admission into tertiary institutions. He practically cost Professor Tahir Mamman his minister of education job, with the needless ruckus he created in the country with the misguided policy. Incidentally he retained his JAMB job making Mamman, a collateral damage. Now, his sight appears set on incumbent Tunji Alausa with his disastrous pomposity in conducting what is purely public business. You can’t love Nigerians more than themselves. If the popular opinion is the status quo before the age-cap which he wanted at 18, why not allow the nation rest. Thankfully, Alausa came and temporarily restored sanity by putting him in his place with the declaration that admission minimum age is 16, though Oloyede hasn’t stopped acting as if he is God’s special gift to public service, casting aside nearly every opinion not in tandem with his wish, including the Nigerian Senate’s.

I have no tears for Oloyede. If Alausa allows the JAMB CEO to push him around like he did with Mamman, there would also be no tears for the minister, who despite being the president’s friend, can still become a sacrificial lamb if happenings in the education sector through Oloyede’s annual crisis, would make more enemies for the president especially in the South where western education is existential.

It’s dangerous when individuals are allowed to become institutions bigger than the rule of law. Multiple judicial pronouncements have overruled Oloyede’s imposed age limit, yet the mess of UTME he conducted this year, still came discriminating against candidates who did not meet his imposed age cap, with their scores being withheld. Is Oloyede now bigger than and above the law, simply because he had been cheered as a public hero? Is the blatant disregard for the rule of law the virtue he is promoting in the system and the legacy he wants to pass on?

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Nigeria is undoubtedly low on genuine heroes, but is the administration of Bola Tinubu saying Oloyede is too big to be handled for gross misconduct and contempt of court, except the administration is a collaborator in this flagrant disregard for the judiciary. Say what you want about Tinubu’s government, you can’t call it a serial contemnor of court orders. But Oloyede is blighting that record and the president must move swiftly to address the partial error of last cabinet change, when both Tahir and Ishaq should have been flushed out.

Well, Tinubu may protect Oloyede from official retribution but what about God who can handle both the president and the JAMB boss and who appears to be handling the latter lately. When a man begins to see pure grace on his life as being infallible and invisible, God, out of mercy, has a way of gently perforating such sense of impregnability, to teach humility. Oloyede is graced no doubt. Or how many of his professor-colleagues who even majored in “mainstream” fields, went on to become Vice Chancellors and how many crisis-ridden VCs like him, who are even more intellectually-savvy(I have been at Oloyede pressers and his astuteness isn’t a stand-out), ended being rewarded with juicy job like JAMB’s. Even the alleged corruption case brought against him by UniIlorin stakeholders when he was nominated for the JAMB job, has been forgotten and possibly forgiven, by both the Buhari and Tinubu administrations. So why is he carrying on as if the voices of parents and cries of admission-seekers do not matter? Maybe because he thinks he controls their destinies?

When he began his open war against young people, because a mother decided to sue over a breach of her daughter’s data by a Cupid-struck JAMB vendor seeking puppy-love from her 15-year-old, I wrote then that God would force him to eat the humble pie, if he would not back down. Well, here we are today.

I have heard arguments like “he has done well, Nigerians should overlook this crisis”, “he has apologized, the country should move on from this mess”, “he has generated billions of naira for government”, “he is a great man for admitting to the error, apologizing and even crying”, “Nigerians should accept the resit and move on”, “This is not without precedents in First World” etc.

The problem is not the activities, the problem is the man who believes he’s a superman, bigger than not only the Board, but the ministry of education and the entire education sector. No one is denying the reforms that all sectors including the admission process into higher education needed like yesterday, but due process must not be sacrificed for a man who carries on as if irreplaceable. This reminds of the wrong-headed call by Buhari backers in 2015 to have the constitution suspended so he could “efficiently” fight corruption. Thankfully, media platforms like Tribune rose to the occasion with scathing editorials that shut down the very dangerous proposal. Opponents of the idea, were later proved very right by the conducts of the yesterday administration.

Megalomaniacs can only be restrained by constitutional guardrails and legal bulwarks. Ordinarily those enamoured of power accoutrements and large-scale deployment of same, would explore loopholes in the system. Even months after Yemi Adaramodu, senate spokesperson, promised that Nigeria would have the required national talk on admission process and the future of the gifted, the upper chamber has done everything, except the promised discussion, leaving thousands of gifted admission seekers at Oloyede’s mercy.

But where men won’t give justice, God will, especially when it is about young people.

In verses of Matthew 18,  Jesus uttered frightening stuff about how not to treat young ones; “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven…but whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea”.

I’m not happy that the optic that would define Oloyede 10-year tenure was that moment when his cap took an awkward slant on his head and his face contoured into a zig-zag, before the tears flowed, but being a very religious man which he advertises at every turn, he should back-heel into the inner recess of his space and commune with his Creator, even as his own in the media fall over themselves to save his neck and face.

That humiliating moment should be humbling enough for him to know that getting it right is not a function of human capabilities and passion. Most and even more passionate people, even when better qualified might never have the opportunities God has opened to Oloyede. Without compromising value and quality, he should demonstrate more humility and compassion in the discharge of his national assignment even if Aso Rock is in his pocket. Wrapped in his delusioning invisibility, Oloyede became the tormentor of households, causing grief and sorrow for parents and their admission-seeking children, and in several instances, death of promising Nigerians, through his unyielding stance on poorly-fashioned policies like the early morning scheduling of the examination.  Many have been maimed in early morning crashes. Many suffered permanent disability. Many dead.

When Yoruba say “ada bi”, (except), it is still a frightening thing, even in its phrasal incompleteness. Offended Christians who want to obey the “vengeance is mine” homily of God will say “I leave you to God” which is even more potent than placing a curse.

There shall be no curseless curse, Proverbs 26:2 says.

It is just 14 months to the expiration of Oloyede’s second and final term, with just one more UTME to conduct in and one more admission round. There are both the Alpha anointing to start well and the Omega anointing to end well. Instead of the scramble in the media by his friends, they should be praying for him to end well. God likely allowed the twilight humiliation to teach him humility.

Professor Oloyede is my namesake. I wish him well.