‘Your crocodile tears will not bring back a lost life,’ Sowore tells JAMB registrar, Oloyede

Former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 general elections, Omoyele Sowore, has accused the Registrar of the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede, of shedding ‘crocodile tears’ after he broke down in tears while explaining the circumstances that led to mass failure in the 2025 UTME examinations.

Oloyede had, during a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, acknowledged that errors and technical glitches during the examination had negatively affected the performance of some candidates.

“As Registrar of JAMB, I hold myself personally responsible, including for the negligence of the service provider, and I unreservedly apologise for it and the trauma that it has subjected affected Nigerians to, directly and indirectly,” Oloyede said.

While tendering the Board’s apologies to the affected students and Nigerians in general, the Registrar had broken down in tears, but the human rights activist would not buy into the tears which he described as fake and stage managed aimed at drawing the sympathy of the public.

Sowore who bared his mind in a post on X on Wednesday night, also called for the immediate scrapping of JAMB, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), and Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), describing them as “extracurricular bureaucratic busybodies.”

He also alluded to the death of a 19-year-old girl, Timilehin Faith Opesusi who committed suicide after scoring 190 in her JAMB result, which he said was as a result of the frustrations students go through in the hands of Nigerian public institutions.

“The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (@JAMBHQ) Prof. Oloyede bears responsibility for the organization’s egregious errors, which have devastatingly claimed a young life, shedding crocodile tears is not a remedy for these infractions,” he wrote.

“As a first step, he should resign, followed by a thorough investigation and possible prosecution for manslaughter. Moreover, JAMB must be scrapped.

“Time to scrap these extracurricular bureaucratic busybodies …JAMB, NYSC, TETFUND, NELFUND, they are all useless,” Sowore added.

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