The University of Ibadan chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has described as “shallow thought and autocratic” the decision of the Federal Government to ban post-university matriculation examinations in Nigerian universities.
The union said this in a statement issued yesterday by its chairman, Dr. Deji Omole, warning that the decision would add no value to education in the country.

Omole said the pronouncements by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu had eroded the autonomy of university in admission of students, stressing that the, “autocratic pronouncement” was a non issue when compared with fundamental issue of funding universities and meeting ASUU-FGN 2009 agreements.


He added that the ban was more disturbing and ill-timed now that the Federal government is owing public universities about N1billion intervention fund.

With the ban, the ASUU chairman said it was obvious that the Education Minister was oblivious of extant university autonomy granted the Senate of Nigerian Universities to determine the procedures for the conduct of admission and regulate admission of its students.

He maintained that the decentralisation of JAMB should be carried out by the Federal Government since the examination body‎ lacked the ability to conduct credible and dependable examination upon which credible universities like University of Ibadan can rely.

Making reference to a research conducted by Professor Afolabi Bamgboye in the University of Ibadan, he stressed that the findings revealed that higher JAMB scores have negative relationship with the performances of students at 100 university degree examinations.


According to Omole, JAMB has outlived its credibility as indicated in last examination exercise it conducted where candidates who did not finish examinations or had issues with their Computer Based Test were awarded extra 40 marks arbitrarily without justifications.

“A Nigerian Minister of Education must make pronouncement based on sound academic research not on road-side talk which queries his very essence of being appointed as a Minister,” the union leader said.