In a rare moment of candour, the Registrar of Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede, made what, by local standards, could be considered a public confession. A glitch, he admitted, was responsible for the widespread poor performance of students in the most recent examination cycle. And in Nigeria, where transparency in public institutions is treated more like a virtue to be honoured in absentia, this admission was received by some quarters as an act of courage.

He was praised, even celebrated. But a hard question demands to be asked: Is this really praiseworthy, or have we sunk so deep into administrative dysfunction that confessing an avoidable failure now qualifies as a national virtue?

There is a logic that governs apologies. It is one thing to say “I’m sorry,” and quite another to mean it, and something else entirely to earn forgiveness—or in this case, public trust. For institutions that serve as bridges to opportunity—like JAMB—the standard cannot be confession but competence. A glitch that ruins the prospects of hundreds of thousands of students is not a minor hiccup. It is not the kind of thing that is repaired by apology or humanised by honesty. It is a breach of the social contract.

Let us start with the glitch, that now-euphemistic term which seems to carry all the weight of a bad signal on a Zoom call but, in this case, stands in for something far more consequential. A “glitch,” as we are meant to believe, somehow infiltrated the system, skewed results, and left students, parents, and teachers in disarray. The Registrar’s language was clinical, even sterile. No malice intended, no villain to unmask. Just a technical error.

And this framing is important. Because when public failures are dressed in the neutral garments of “system malfunction,” it quietly detaches the human hand that coded, tested, and deployed the system. No one becomes accountable—not the programmers, not the administrators, not the Registrar. Definitely, not me.

This sort of thing matters. A country that cannot guarantee the sanctity of its entrance examinations is a country that is failing its future. The JAMB examination is not simply a test; it is a gatekeeper, a weeder, a social mobiliser, and for many, a once-in-a-lifetime shot at escaping ignorance and poverty. It is high-stakes not by hyperbole, but by design.

To tamper with that, even accidentally, is to play God with the futures of so many young Nigerians in search of good education. And when that tampering is shrugged off as a “glitch,” and the one who presides over it receives ovation for his honesty, we must ask ourselves whether we are clapping for courage or clapping in confusion.

Praise, like public trust, should be earned, not begged for. But in Nigeria’s public sector, the bar of expectation is so low that we often mistake basic decency for heroism. A public official who tells the truth is seen as rare and thus admirable.

But to praise the Registrar of JAMB for admitting a flaw in his system is to participate in the erosion of standards. One might argue that such an admission should be the beginning of accountability—not its substitute.

This is a pattern. Hospitals without drugs, yet praised for treating patients with “kindness.” Teachers without salaries, celebrated for “sacrificing.” Roads without maintenance, governments without plans, policies without foresight. Yet we are told to clap, to be grateful, to acknowledge “effort.” But gratitude for mere effort is for toddlers learning to walk, not for institutions meant to be lifelines in a developing country.

The Greek term metanoia denotes more than regret—it implies transformation. It is not just a change of mind, but a turning of one’s life toward a new direction. If the JAMB Registrar’s admission were to count as true metanoia, it should come with not just an apology, but a strategy—an audit, a suspension of the responsible actors, a reform of the examination process, a public display of systems stress-tested for resilience. Without this, what we have is not transformation, but PR.

We must also recognise how modern institutions weaponise transparency. In an age of information, the appearance of honesty can be just as powerful as honesty itself. The press conference. The humble tone. The language of concern. But sincerity without restitution is not reform—it is rebranding.

One wonders: if the uproar was mute, would the “glitch” have ever been acknowledged? And more chillingly, how many glitches have been quietly swept under the digital rug in years past, blamed on students, rationalised as laziness, stupidity, or academic weakness?

Behind every poor performance statistic lies a real person—a child whose self-worth has been punctured, a parent who mortgaged land to pay for exam prep, a teacher who must explain to his class why all their effort amounted to nothing. Some students contemplated suicide. Others will give up on education entirely. What is the cost of a mistake like this? And can we truly measure it?

When a single failure in a centralised system can destroy so many dreams in a single blow, we must stop pretending these are isolated errors. They are design flaws—symptoms of a deeper systemic rot. And while praise may be directed at the Registrar for owning up, we must direct our scrutiny at the system that allowed such a flaw to exist in the first place.

This moment is more than a case study in education policy—it is a portrait of how a nation handles failure. Nigeria has become too forgiving of mediocrity. We have turned national failures into events for moral theater. Someone stands at a podium, declares error, we applaud their “courage,” and then… we move on. No restitution, no policy overhaul. Just another layer of administrative scar tissue.

And in doing so, we teach young people the wrong lesson. That failure is excusable so long as one is “honest” about it. That consequences are for the unfortunate, not the powerful. That apology is performance, not a moral act. That systems don’t have to work, they just have to appear to work.

If we lived in a functional meritocracy, the Registrar would not just confess—he would go further. Or at least, step aside while an independent inquiry investigates the root cause of the malfunction. A public compensation fund would be set up for affected students in addition with options for retesting. The technology firm responsible would be blacklisted until they demonstrate renewed credibility. Policies would be rewritten. And perhaps most critically, the public would be told the full truth—whether this was a glitch, or something more sinister.

Instead, we are offered a soundbite and silence. A quick mea culpa and a return to business as usual. The sacrament of confession has been invoked, but without penance.

Let us be clear: honesty from public officials is better than denial. But we must stop mistaking it for a solution. Nigeria does not lack people who can say “I’m sorry.” It lacks people who will fix what went wrong and prevent it from happening again. Praise, in this case, is not only premature—it is perverse. For we are clapping while the children cry. We are hailing honesty while futures are being squandered.

We must demand more—not just from officials, but from ourselves. A culture that rewards admission over prevention is one destined to recycle failure. And a nation where honesty is celebrated but excellence is optional will forever struggle to rise.

So, to the JAMB Registrar: thank you for telling the truth. Now, please show us what you are going to do with it.
Fr. Nkadi wrote from Opshot Academy. He can reached via:[email protected]