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In February 2018, a mystery snake was reported to have swallowed about N36 million cash kept in the accounts office of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Makurdi, the Benue State capital. The money was proceeds from the scratch cards, which JAMB sold to candidates between 2014 and 2016. The cards were to enable candidates to gain access to JAMB website either for registration or to check their admission status. The board had abolished this scratch card system to curb corruption. But it discovered the missing N36 million when it sent a team of auditors to its different state offices to take inventory of the sale of the scratch cards. On interrogation, a sales clerk who was the major suspect, Philomena Chieshe, said her housemaid and another JAMB employee, ‘spiritually’ stole the money (through snake) from the vault in the accounts office in Makurdi. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in May 2019, arraigned Chieshe alongside five others.
Last week, JAMB was again in the news for some negative reasons. One of the candidates who wrote the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), Miss Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme, was the subject matter. Mmesoma had claimed she scored 362 out of 400 to emerge the highest scorer in this year’s examination. Her school, Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, in Anambra State, and indeed many Nigerians celebrated her. The management of Innoson Automobile Company capped it with a N3 million scholarship. Things seemed to be falling in pleasant places for Mmesoma.
Unfortunately, JAMB suddenly upset the apple cart. It proclaimed that the result the young lady was parading was forged and that her actual score was 249. The real highest scorer, JAMB noted, was Anambra State-born Miss Kamsiyochukwu Nkechinyere Umeh, a student of Deeper Life High School, Mowe, in Ogun State. Umeh scored 360 to attain this feat. Initially, Mmesoma cried foul. She insisted she scored 362 and that she printed the result from the JAMB portal. But when JAMB provided unassailable evidence, including the fact that it stopped issuing the result notification slip format Mmesoma relied upon since 2021, the girl owned up to her error. “After all said and done, I now saw that I got 249,” she finally admitted.
It is surprising how this young lady sent many Nigerians on a wild goose chase. Sentiments had beclouded many people’s sense of reasoning. The Department of State Services (DSS) was invited to investigate. Anambra State Government set up an eight-member committee of inquiry made up of five professors to probe the matter. The House of Representatives also set up a panel to unravel the mystery behind the saga. The House particularly appealed to JAMB to lift the three-year ban it imposed on the culprit from participating in its exams pending the outcome of its investigation.
Well, the Anambra panel was swift in turning in its report. It discovered truly that Mmesoma forged her result unaided. It asked her to immediately apologise to JAMB, her school and Anambra State Government. It also recommended that she should undergo psychological counselling and therapy.
This report put paid to all speculations about this incident. From the snake-swallowing-money scandal to Mmesoma mess, JAMB, under its current registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, has shown that, though corruption festers in many agencies of government, it could be tamed when upright people are at the helm. Oloyede’s JAMB has consistently shown the way for others to follow. When many other ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) siphon money, JAMB has been remitting billions of naira to government coffers every year since Oloyede took over in 2016. In the last seven years, the body has remitted over N50 billion to the federal government. This is in sharp contrast to about N52 million, which had been the cumulative return of the board in the previous 40 years. In a sane country, Oloyede should have been appointed to a higher position in government.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) comes to mind here. Over the years, the commission has been messing up our electoral system. Most times, those who are announced as winners in our elections are not the actual winners. Sometimes, it is in human nature to cheat. But the question is, how does our society punish those who cheat? The difference between our country and some advanced countries is that we tend to cheat with impunity; but in those advanced societies, such cheating comes with adequate punishment.
Let’s take our last general election, for instance. There were a lot of irregularities. Even with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and amended electoral law, riggers were still able to manipulate results. INEC told us there was a glitch in the uploading of the presidential election result. The commission has not been able to tell Nigerians the nature of that glitch. The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM) did not mince words in saying the process was greatly flawed. It made a number of recommendations. Rather than take the recommendations in good faith, some hirelings and supporters of President Bola Tinubu protested against the report last week at the EU secretariat in Abuja. I am sure some of the protesters did not even understand what they were protesting against. There is hunger in the land. So, some hungry citizens are ready to do anything as long as they can get some akara (bean cake) and bread money.
It is unfortunate that many of our elected political office-holders today assumed their positions with fake results. Some of them may even be among those throwing stones at Mmesoma. The difference between them and that young lady is that she has owned up to her mistake. Those ruling us with fake results should also own up and surrender the mandates they have stolen.
The leadership of JAMB deserves commendation. It has shown that it is upright. It has discovered and sanctioned a number of candidates who falsified their results to gain undue advantage over others in their UTME. The leadership of INEC and every other corrupt government agency should do the same. My focus is more on INEC because that body supervises the election of leaders. And the major problem of Nigeria is leadership deficit. Until we get that element right, we will not know peace and development.
If I am to recommend, I will wish that Professor Oloyede be made the new chairman of INEC. He has proven to be a man of character, principle and integrity. It is just a wish because I know that with the characters parading the corridors of power in Nigeria today, having Oloyede in INEC amounts to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. We watch as events unfold in the election petitions tribunals. May God deliver Nigeria!
Re: INEC chairman must go
As a child in primary school, the mere mention of the name ‘professor’ was synonymous with scholarship, integrity, frugality and honour. The sale of books and handouts for marks was also an anathema and a rarity. Things have since changed for the worse! Professors – the paragon of knowledge have now partaken in illegalities, and have also constituted themselves into a part of the shameful and enduring culture of examination malpractices in our universities. Lately, our electoral system has also taken its share of the ugly side of our latter-day professors. There are more questions than answers for the learned Professor Mahmood Yakubu. One recurring question is, why is it that it’s only the Presidential Election – the most important of all the elections – that suffered the stress of the purported technical glitches while the rest of the elections witnessed a seamless live uploading of the results?
– Edet Essien Esq. Cal South, +234 810 809 5633
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has set the ignoble record as the chairman of INEC who conducted the worst presidential election in the history of Nigeria. Ironically, he’s the only INEC chairman who conducted two general elections: 2019 and 2023 apart from other off-cycle elections under his watch. Unlike the CBN governor and the EFCC chairman, both suspended, Tinubu will never suspend or sack the INEC chairman because Yakubu did the most odious hatchet job for the APC-led federal government. In any case, his second non-renewable term terminates by 2025, so he can never conduct any presidential election again. However, my fear is about how he will conduct the future off-cycle elections before the expiration of his tenure. If the PEPC upholds the election of Tinubu, democracy is doomed in Nigeria. If Yakubu could clandestinely announce him as the winner of the presidential election by 4:00am, then imagine what the chairman that Tinubu will personally appoint will do for him.
– Ifeanyi, Owerri, +234 806 156 2735
Dear Casmir, the synopsis of our fortune lies in genuine franchise and this has been denied since independence. Leadership is value delivery; so Mahmood must go for failing on this task.
– Cletus Frenchman, Enugu, +2349095385215
Prof. Mahmood’s post-presidential election behaviour of being, somewhat, out of visibility is a function of the moral battle between his CONSCIENCE and himself. The electoral malfeasance which is an albatross around his neck represents the proverb which says that when a chicken farts against the land of her abode, the land reacts by pursuing her. The INEC Man Friday, Mahmood, farted against Nigeria, his fatherland, and the land, in turn, is in hot pursuit. Hence, his, somewhat, being out of circulation and keeping mum! Your recommendation for his sacking is, rather, belated. Reason? His conscience has sacked him by hounding him. As for Festus Okoye’s shabby, pedestrian and insipid defence about the so-called glitch on Channels TV, one can only pity him for sweating to protect his stomach infrastructure. May he and his principal be reminded that a proverb has it that Truth that begins her journey today shall overtake falsehood that began her own journey 24 years ago and, finally, turn the purveyor of the falsehood into a pariah.
– Steve Okoye, Awka, 08036630731
Casmir, in the court of public opinion, the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, is guilty as charged and should go, for providing the ‘leeway’ that aided Tinubu’s ‘purported victory’. Tinubu applied the ‘smash and grab’ approach, but Yakubu worked in cahoots with him! Tinubu intimidated, manipulated, cajoled, exploited and eventually bulldozed his way into Aso Rock Abuja. He has exploited the void in our electoral laws which allow him to form a government despite the contestation of his ‘purported victory’ at the election tribunal! Should the judiciary, which is the final arbiter on electoral matters, find Yakubu complicit or incompetent vis-a-vis the Feb 25th election, then, we will move from “he should go” to “he must go”! Ideally, he ought to have resigned by now.
– Mike, Mushin, +234 816 111 4572
Casmir, I am really worried about the future of Nigeria because of impunity and lawlessness. I am worried because gangsters have taken over the management of Nigeria shamelessly. I am worried because even a Professor can be used to thwart the people’s choice in an election in Nigeria. I am worried because despite all known flaws in the election, a President emerged. I am worried because Nigerian electoral umpire has made us to believe that a Constitution can be interpreted in any way it suits them in order to rob the people of the right choice. Prof. Yakubu and his officials should bury their faces in shame and resign.
– Pharmacist Okwuchukwu Njike, +234 803 885 4922
INEC chairman must go. It is long overdue. Truth counts for nothing; vice is a virtue; impunity is a celebrity in Nigeria. If this man is still the INEC chairman in the next election, I will not vote.
– Emma, Wuse 2 Abuja, +234 803 558 5109
INEC chairman should resign over poor election he conducted, especially presidential election. Let’s see whether our judiciary will do the needful at the end.
– Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, +234 807 316 5732
