In a nation constantly battling systemic failure and trust deficits in public institutions, the 2025 UTME glitches and the tragic incident in Ibadan have stirred national debates — not just on accountability, but on how we process failure, responsibility, and governance. This piece offers a measured opinion on these events and the reactions they have provoked.

JAMB’s Glitch – A Break from the Norm

For many Nigerians, trust in public institutions has long been eroded by years of systemic failure, opaque processes, and a culture of impunity. So when nearly 380,000 candidates — mostly from Lagos and the South-East — were caught in the web of a technical glitch during the 2025 UTME, it was unsurprising that tempers flared and chaos ensued. What was surprising, however, was the response. In a country where officials often double down or offer half-hearted denials, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, the Registrar of JAMB, did something revolutionary: he owned it.

He publicly apologized. He acknowledged the glitch. He admitted institutional failure. And he ordered a retake for the affected candidates. That singular act of transparency — so simple, yet so rare in Nigeria’s public sector — is worthy of note. This is not to excuse the glitch. Lives have been disrupted. Dreams put on hold. But we must be honest: this is the first time in recent memory a public servant in Nigeria responded to such a crisis not with blame-shifting or stonewalling, but with candor and corrective action.

To put it in context, JAMB under Oloyede has transformed from a cesspool of corruption into a data-driven, accountable body. Between 2016 and 2023, JAMB remitted over ₦50 billion to the federal government — a shocking leap from the ₦3 million remitted in some previous years. Systems were automated, processes sanitized, and revenue leakages plugged. It is precisely because of this track record of reform that we must resist the urge to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Technical glitches must be fixed. Affected students deserve redress. But let’s not allow outrage culture to burn down the few institutions that are, quite frankly, trying to get it right.
Accountability, when it shows up in a landscape starved of it, should be reinforced — not crucified.

On Failure, Suicide, and Responsibility

For decades in Nigeria, failing JAMB was more or less a rite of passage. Students would write the exam once, twice, sometimes three or four times before eventually gaining admission. It wasn’t ideal, but it was expected — and endured. The phrase ‘jammed by JAMB’ became cultural shorthand for the long road from ambition to admission. And yet, for all the disappointment, few — if any — ever contemplated taking their own lives. Fast forward to today, and we are confronted with heartbreaking reports of a student allegedly committing suicide after seeing their UTME results. Whether or not this particular case is confirmed, the mere possibility has become all too familiar. It begs a piercing question: What has changed?

Why is suicide creeping into the psyche of our youth as an option for academic or social disappointment? Why is self-harm — mentally, physically, even spiritually — becoming normalized among teenagers?
We must interrogate this tragic shift holistically:
– Is it peer pressure, amplified by curated perfection on social media?
– Is it parental pressure, where love is often perceived as conditional upon performance?
– Is it a societal failure, where one exam feels like the only doorway to a better life?
– Or is it the deafening silence of social services, mental health systems, and community care?
We must also ask, what are our children feeding on? Beyond food, what content, what conversations, what worldviews are they constantly consuming that tilt their minds toward hopelessness and despair at the slightest stumble?

This is not JAMB’s burden alone. It is shared. It is communal.

Schools must be more than academic factories — they must be safe spaces. Parents must nurture resilience, not just excellence. Governments must invest in guidance counselors, crisis lines, and youth-focused mental health infrastructure. We say “it takes a village to raise a child.” But today, that village is distracted — and our children are crying in silence.

Calls for Resignation – A Jamboree of Irrelevance

There’s an unsettling pattern in our national discourse — a reflexive call for resignation at every misstep, every glitch, every controversy. No nuance. No context. Just bloodlust disguised as civic engagement.

The recent clamour for Professor Ishaq Oloyede’s resignation following the JAMB technical issues is a textbook example. Here is a man with a stellar track record — a reformer who, as Vice Chancellor and now Registrar, has transformed rotten systems into functioning ones. Yet, despite his rare show of accountability and transparency, what meets him is a mob ready with torches. Are we truly invested in reform, or are we just addicted to outrage?
Worse still, why must ethnic and religious undertones stain every debate? When did we become so tribal in our assessment of public figures? When did performance take a backseat to primordial identities?
It appears we now operate on a culture of:
– Jumping on trends without reflection.
– Condemning without building.
– Criticizing destructively without offering constructive solutions.
– Cursing the country under the guise of frustration, and yet demanding that same country magically improve.

We’re quick to amplify failures, yet go mute when good things happen. We push negativity to trend, but overlook wins. We drown optimism with chronic cynicism and then wonder why hope is such a scarce commodity.

This is not accountability — it’s performance anger. And it serves no one.

Rather than calling for the head of a man who did what many never do — admit fault and offer a solution — we should be institutionalizing his example. Codifying it. Celebrating it. Demanding more of it from others.
If we truly want a better Nigeria, we must learn to differentiate failure from sabotage, error from incompetence, and honesty from weakness. Let us stop turning every issue into a jamboree of noise. Let us begin, instead, to build the scaffolding for the Nigeria we say we want.

As Theodore Roosevelt once said, “It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
If we truly care about Nigeria, we must move beyond hashtags and rage, and into the arena of building — brick by brick, word by word, act by act.

The Ibadan Incident – A Case Study in Dual Recklessness

The death of 14-year-old Kehinde Alade in Ibadan is as tragic as it is avoidable. A young life — full of promise — now lost. The public outrage that followed was expected. And rightly so. But beneath the noise lies a story of dual recklessness — one that demands sober reflection, not just emotional reaction.

According to eyewitness accounts and available video footage, Kehinde’s father was driving against traffic — an illegal and dangerous act in any society. When flagged down by law enforcement, he chose to flee rather than stop. In doing so, he endangered his own life, the lives of his passengers, pedestrians, and the Police/OYSTMA team attempting to do their job.

It was during this reckless chase that a police officer attached to the team allegedly fired a shot, which tragically struck Kehinde. The public has since focused much of its fury on the police. But let us ask the hard questions — all the hard questions, not just the convenient ones.

To the father:
– Why were you driving against traffic?
– Why did you refuse to stop when accosted?
– What were you trying to prove by fleeing?
– If your son had not been hit, would you have stopped at all?

On the other side, the situation of the police officer demands clarity, not condemnation. From all indications, it’s unlikely that the officer intended to kill the child. The more plausible explanation is that he was attempting to immobilize a fleeing vehicle — a vehicle that had clearly broken the law and posed a real-time threat to public safety. The key question is: Did he know there were children or other passengers in the back seat? In the heat of pursuit, facing a motorist defying lawful order and endangering both officers and civilians, the officer’s response — though tragic in outcome — appears grounded in duty, not malice.

If I were Attorney General of Oyo State, I would not press criminal charges against the officer. Instead, I would uphold a full review, recommend internal protocols where needed, and focus prosecutorial energy where it truly belongs: the father.

He should be charged with:
– Driving against traffic
– Fleeing lawful arrest
– Assault with intent to harm
– Damage to public property
– And involuntary manslaughter — for creating the very conditions that led to his child’s death

This is not an attempt to absolve the police of scrutiny — law enforcement must always be held to the highest standard. But if we are to build a functional society, lawlessness cannot be tolerated on either side of the divide. Justice must be based on facts, not feelings. It should be pursued with wisdom, not vengeance. We must stop creating a culture where citizens break the law with impunity, and yet cry foul when lawful enforcement — even under duress — ends in unfortunate consequences.

Let us mourn the child. Let us comfort the family. But let us not abandon truth on the altar of emotion.

“Justice must not only serve emotion, it must serve truth — or the society will rebel against fairness itself.”
— Adapted from Justice Akinola Aguda

Road Accidents and Nigeria’s Driving Culture – A Silent Epidemic

If Nigeria were at war, and we lost over 1,500 lives in just three months, the nation would be in mourning. Flags would be lowered. Presidential addresses would fill the airwaves. Yet that is exactly what happened in Q1 2025, not from conflict — but from road traffic crashes.

According to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), 1,593 Nigerians died in 2,650 traffic crashes between January and March 2025 (21st Century Chronicle – https://21stcenturychronicle.com/2650-road-accidents-killed-1593-nigerians-in-2025-q1-frsc/). Thousands more were injured — many left with life-altering disabilities.

This isn’t new. Between 2013 and 2020, over 41,709 lives were lost to road crashes in Nigeria, according to aggregated data from FRSC and the National Bureau of Statistics (Dataphyte https://archive.dataphyte.com/latest-reports/road-safety/road-traffic-crashes-in-nigeria-claims-41709-lives-in-8-years/).

In 2023 alone, 1,349 people died and 7,744 others were injured in road accidents, according to FRSC reports published by ICIR Nigeria (ICIR Nigeria – https://www.icirnigeria.org/road-traffic-crashes-dangerous-states-to-drive-in-nigeria/).

And yet, as a nation, we treat road safety like a casual inconvenience rather than the public health emergency it has become.
The leading causes? Not a mystery:
– One-way driving
– Over-speeding
– Dangerous overtaking
– Vehicle unroadworthiness
– And a deep-rooted culture of lawlessness behind the wheel

Nigerian roads have become a theatre of madness — a place where road signs are suggestions, traffic lights are ornamental, and law enforcement is often either absent or compromised. The result is a silent epidemic, consuming lives daily, and leaving families shattered. But make no mistake: this is not just about reckless drivers. It is also about a system that has normalized indiscipline, underfunded enforcement, and undervalued the sanctity of life.

If we can arrest protesters in minutes, surely we can arrest motorists who take one-way and endanger entire communities. If we can mobilize for elections, surely we can mobilize for driver re-certification, urban traffic reform, and functional public transport systems.

The change we need isn’t technical — it’s cultural. We must reset our mindset on the roads, from entitlement to empathy. From impunity to accountability. Because until we do, our highways will remain graveyards, and our steering wheels, weapons in the wrong hands.

Recommendations – Turning Reflection into Reform

If there’s anything these recent events have taught us, it’s that systems don’t fail on their own — people do. But people can also reform them. These recommendations are not exhaustive, but they represent a starting point for real, measurable change.

For JAMB and Educational Institutions:

• – Upgrade digital infrastructure and build system redundancies to prevent future glitches, especially in high-volume regions.
• – Establish rapid-response protocols that allow swift investigation and remedy of technical failures.
• – Create an open appeals and feedback mechanism that is transparent, student-friendly, and responsive — not dismissive.
• – Invest in psychological support desks within educational boards to attend to students’ emotional and mental concerns post-exam.

For Police and Traffic Enforcement Agencies:

• – Implement mandatory de-escalation and engagement training, emphasizing discretion, discernment, and proportionality.
• – Deploy body cameras and dashcams across units to increase transparency, protect officers, and restore public trust.
• – Enforce accountability for rogue behavior within the force, just as rigorously as we pursue violations by citizens.
• – Clarify and publicize engagement protocols, especially during traffic stops, to avoid ambiguity and abuse.

For Nigerian Society at Large:

• – Rebuild civic education from the ground up — in schools, homes, religious institutions, and on media platforms — to nurture responsible citizenship.
• – Destigmatize mental health struggles and create safe, accessible support systems for young people battling pressure and anxiety.
• – Promote parenting education and community support structures to help caregivers raise emotionally resilient and ethically grounded children.
• – Champion a culture of responsibility over rage, where justice is pursued with clarity — not chaos — and patriotism includes lawfulness.

These are not futuristic ideals. They are present possibilities.
We can act — or we can wait for another tragedy to force our hand.

Conclusion – From Noise to Nationhood

Whether it’s a testing glitch or a traffic tragedy, we must retire the culture of scapegoating and embrace the hard, necessary work of reform. Our default cannot continue to be outrage without outcome, or blame without balance. We must resist the urge to set fire to every institution that stumbles — especially when those at the helm take responsibility and show the will to fix it.

True nation-building begins not when perfection is achieved, but when accountability is encouraged, when justice is measured, and when every citizen — from registrars to road users — plays by the rules.

Let us build a society that is:
– Accountable, not accusatory.
– Law-abiding, not lawless.
– Humane, not hysterical.

A nation where every misstep is not met with gasoline, but with grace, governance, and the grit to do better.

“No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come. Let us work for the day.”
— Nnamdi Azikiwe