Manufactured Scandal And Legislative Blackmail: How A Coordinated Campaign Seeks To Undermine Oversight Of Nigeria’s Examination Bodies

By Ademola Ishola

In recent days, an avalanche of sensational allegations has been deliberately rehashed against Hon. Oboku Abonsizibe Oforji, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Examination Bodies. Carefully choreographed, emotionally charged, and aggressively circulated, these claims are not the product of investigative rigour or civic concern. Rather, they bear all the hallmarks of a calculated blackmail operation, one designed to distract, intimidate, and ultimately derail a legislative committee that has dared to insist on transparency in one of Nigeria’s most sensitive public sectors.

At the heart of this controversy is a simple but inconvenient truth: when oversight becomes uncomfortable, those accustomed to opacity often resort to spectacle. What is unfolding is not a scandal rooted in fact, but a crisis manufactured through exaggeration, selective omissions, and outright distortion, all aimed at weakening the constitutional authority of the legislature. The most reckless strand of the allegations claims that Hon. Oforji and his committee extorted major examination bodies, WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, NBAIS, and JAMB, by coercing them to surrender portions of their Internally Generated Revenue. This narrative collapses immediately under basic scrutiny.

These are not informal outfits operating without legal protection. They are statutory institutions with governing councils, legal departments, compliance units, and direct access to Nigeria’s foremost law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies. Yet, strikingly, not a single one has submitted a petition to the EFCC, ICPC, the Police, or even the leadership of the National Assembly. There is no memo of protest, no letter of complaint, no whistleblower testimony, and no documentary trail. Nigerians are being asked to believe that multiple national agencies were serially extorted—quietly, compliantly, and without resistance. That proposition insults both logic and institutional reality.

What the committee did, in truth, was to demand transparency. It invoked Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which explicitly empower the National Assembly to investigate public institutions, scrutinise their finances, and expose inefficiency, waste, or abuse. Requests for audited accounts, operational breakdowns, and performance indicators were not acts of intimidation; they were acts of governance. Rebranding constitutionally grounded oversight as “blackmail” is a cynical rhetorical trick intended to criminalise accountability itself.

Nowhere is the dishonesty of the allegations clearer than in the handling of the JAMB-sponsored programme of underage examination that has been deliberately misrepresented to the public. Even before then, the committee had extended an invitation to JAMB following the resolution of the house for the investigation of the last JAMB examination crisis, which the examination body failed to honour.

The underage examination programme was designed to be held in three centres: Abuja, Lagos, and Owerri. Members of the House Committee on Basic Examination Bodies were expected to attend as part of their oversight responsibilities. Due to an already congested legislative schedule, the committee was only able to attend one centre, a fact that was publicly documented and widely covered by national media, including AIT and Arise Television. Crucially, because the committee did not attend the Lagos and Owerri centres, ₦43 million was formally returned to JAMB on 11 November 2025 to the JAMB account TSA 0020125461019. This refund occurred transparently and in the midst of ongoing oversight activities, not in secrecy, and not under pressure. If the intention were to divert funds, why return such a substantial amount? And why do so openly?

The controversy escalated unnecessarily on 29 October 2025, when JAMB officials first appeared before the committee. In a dramatic and unprecedented move, the JAMB delegation, led by a director in the Registrar’s office, Mr Bello, staged a walkout, claiming they wished to present “sensitive documents.” He said he had earlier sought a private audience with the chairman, and the committee chairman rightly declined it, as committee proceedings must remain institutional, not personalised. Rather than submit their documents formally, the delegation exited and alleged that the chairman intended to embarrass them. Oversight was recast as hostility; procedure was framed as persecution.

By 13 November 2025, a more sober approach prevailed. JAMB was now represented not by a director, but by its Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who apologised for the earlier conduct and formally submitted documents to the committee. The committee, for its part, reaffirmed that it would not be intimidated, blackmailed or distracted from its mandate. Yet the strangest development came later. After receiving the refunded ₦43 million, JAMB inexplicably returned the same funds to the committee again on 17 November 2025, in the middle of an ongoing probe. The committee promptly returned the money once more on 19 November 2025 to the same account number, JAMB account TSA 0020125461019. After this return, JAMB ran to the media to begin their orchestrated campaign of calumny.

This sequence raises a far more serious question than any posed by the blackmail narrative: why would JAMB return funds to a committee actively probing it, if not to compromise, confuse, or distract the oversight process? Nigerians deserve an answer to that question. The burden of explanation lies squarely with JAMB, not with the committee that consistently returned money it did not earn or request.

This is accounting by rumour, a phantom narrative designed to alarm, not to inform. In a system as paper-driven and procedurally rigid as the National Assembly, financial misconduct cannot simply vanish into thin air. Yet the accusers offer numbers without evidence, accusations without victims, and conclusions without investigation. Another strand of the allegations accuses Hon. Oforji of manipulating consultants to fabricate evidence. Once again, there is no supporting material. Committees routinely engage consultants, just as they routinely disengage them when deliverables fall short. Not a single consultant has filed a complaint. None has testified to coercion. No contract document has been produced to suggest impropriety. What remains is an insinuation elevated to headline status.

The allegations regarding foreign travel are equally hollow. Both chambers of the National Assembly were allocated two official slots each for oversight-related foreign programmes. The Chairmen and Deputy Chairmen of the relevant committees, including Hon. Oforji, undertook the trips. No special allowances were paid beyond standard estacode, in line with established rules. If anyone claims otherwise, the challenge is simple: produce evidence. Travel approvals, payment records, and estacode schedules are documented and verifiable. To date, none has been presented.

Perhaps most revealing is the sudden eruption of civil society organisations demanding Hon. Oforji’s removal. A closer examination reveals a familiar pattern: ad-hoc groups with no sustained track record, parroting identical talking points, and offering no independent verification. These are not watchdogs; they are megaphones, deployed whenever certain interests require moral camouflage for political objectives. Strip away the noise, and a clear picture emerges.

The House Committee on Basic Examination Bodies intensified its scrutiny. Financial practices that had long escaped rigorous examination were suddenly under review. Questions were asked. Documents were demanded. Predictably, discomfort followed. Unable to halt the process through procedure, those threatened by transparency turned to a public spectacle. The goal is not justice; it is paralysis. Discredit the chairman, unsettle the committee, and weaken oversight long enough for the dust to settle and business to return to usual.

There is a glaring absence of logic at the core of these allegations. No petitions. No documents. No witnesses. No financial trail. Only noise, timed precisely to coincide with deeper scrutiny. Hon. Oboku Abonsizibe Oforji’s real offence is not corruption; it is insistence. Insistence on transparency. Insistence on accountability. Insistence that institutions entrusted with examining millions of Nigerian children must themselves be examined. History shows that those who challenge entrenched systems rarely escape retaliation. But it also shows that truth, eventually, outlasts noise. Nigerians must look beyond orchestrated distractions and recognise this campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to silence legislative oversight and preserve institutional impunity. Oversight is not blackmail. Accountability is not persecution. And transparency is not a crime.

Ishola, a political analyst and legislative aide, writes from Abuja. He can be reached at adshola29@gmail.com