President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s appointment of 39-year-old computer scientist Prof. Segun Aina as JAMB registrar in place of Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has reignited the familiar fatigue around federal appointments. As someone who often counters accusations of Tinubu’s South West favoritism by arguing that most Nigerians do the same when given the chance, I still know that one wrong doesn’t justify another.
The same contradictory value system that turns leaders into heroes for securing jobs for their kinsmen, as Prof. Ali Pantami recently admitted doing for Gombe, is what fuels the contemptuous question thrown at public officials: “What did he do for his town and people?” That expectation makes nepotism feel rational, even inevitable.
So when the appointment broke, the social media mood was summed up in one line: “One Yoruba go, another come?” It landed with the same weary bite as the line in the film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” I once watched, “One fool go and another fool come.”
It was the outburst from the “Ugly” that revealed deep fatigue, frustration, and an expectation that the same behavior would repeat itself among those who shared one identity and had known it.
To be fair, Prof. Aina is qualified. At 40 he carries the kind of elite credentials and youthful profile that should command admiration. But the celebration is muted, drowned out by a sense that this is one too many, and it feeds suspicion more than it inspires confidence.
A quick search shows competence isn’t confined to one zone. Prof. Abdurashid Haruna from Katsina became a professor of Applied Mathematics and Data Analytics at 32, now teaching in the U.S. Prof. Celestine Iwendi from Imo is a Professor of AI and IoT at the University of Greater Manchester and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. There are many others across the North, South East, and South South with similar credentials.
This isn’t about Aina’s merit. It’s about perception and constitutional balance. When merit is used selectively, it starts to look like a cover for excluding federal character and inclusion. And in that context, even deserving appointments end up vindicating the charge of chronic nepotism, leaving the public too tired to defend it.
Bagudu Mohammed
bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com
