JAMB AND THE POLITICS OF UNIVERSITY ADMISSION IN NIGERIA; https-jamb-gov-ng

Admission into Nigerian universities has been imbued with policy inconsistencies over the years that a times creates confusion for the University administrators and even the prospective students themselves. In the 1970s, the Federal Government of Nigeria created the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to harmonise and administer admissions into all tertiary institutions in the country including Universities. The reason for the creation of JAMB is to prevent the then situation where prospective students has to apply directly to many universities, a times travelling long distances to submit the application and appear for interviews as well as the multiple admission that blocks the chances for others. It was felt that a central body that organizes a unified entrance with the possibility of issuing the admissions will eliminates some of the challenges. However over the years political consideration has been at the bane of the admission process, with policies such as catchment area, educational disadvantaged states designed to favour people from certain regions of the country. Those policies has endured but the emergence of privately owned universities purely set up by their proprietors for profit purposes has consistently attempted to assert their independence in the admission process. That has set some of these universities against JAMB which has insisted that the law governing admission into higher Universities in Nigeria gives JAMB the exclusive authority. As if that is not enough, public universities in