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By Chinazo-Bertrand Okeomah
For some days now the most trending story in Nigeria is that of 19-year old Mmesoma Ejikeme and her act of enhancing her JAMB score from 249 to 362. As expected, the story has stood upon our social media space like a colossus. But the question one should ask is, “How did she or her enablers learn to do such?” The obvious answer is that they learnt it from our elders and leaders.Some sinister Nigerians have, as usual, elected to infuse tribal spices into the whole saga. Some feel she’s being victimised because she’s Igbo. But such people should know that Nkechinyere Umeh who scored 360, and who JAMB has declared its best in the 2023 exam, is also Igbo. So this renders such persuasion invalid.
Others feel she did what she did because she is Igbo, the Igbo being a people with a genius for cheating. But such people should know that the Igbo have never lagged behind in any index for assessing success. Indeed the Igbo have probably done better in JAMB and other competitive exams than any other tribe in Nigeria. Many have asked, “Is possible to manipulate one’s score in JAMB?”. I personally think it is possible in two major ways. One, a fraud in JAMB’s ICT Department can help someone do so. But if such occurs, the printout score will be the same as the one in JAMB’s database where such an insider effected the change. But this is not the case with Mmesoma.
Two, ICT dab hands could also help her do so, or she could do it herself, as JAMB adduced, using some fun App, which act will not reflect in her score on JAMB’s database. This is what I suspect happened in her case. This might explain why, according to JAMB, the printout she is brandishing is obsolete. JAMB says it last used that format in 2021. Yet many believe the girl is innocent, given that her dad, reported to be an okada rider, and her mom, said to be a fruit seller, surely don’t have the skill set for such devious act. I believe some people helped her do this, hiding under the fact that the girl has enduring footprints of academic brilliance. I think in their mind they wanted to help her attract grants or scholarships from which they stood to gain in one way or the other. And they had instant success with the Three Million Naira grant that came from Innocent Chukwuma, the owner of Innoson Motors. I believe the girl’s chief infraction or the main factor that pulled the veil off her act was her intrepid act of posting a video on social media in which she insisted she actually scored 362. This must be what made JAMB go on air and what made them unleash sanctions on her. But even if she doctored her score, JAMB, which has garnered reputation as a highly improved organs in our nation, should tread with caution. Its act of withdrawing her 2023 JAMB result is harsh enough. Their extra act of restraining her from sitting for JAMB for three long years is a hefty overkill. Is this in their rule? I don’t think they have given such mighty punishment on any other person. So I counsel them to reverse it. It’s like using a sledge hammer to kill an ant.
This might explain why some Nigerians in Diaspora are falling over themselves in valiant bid to have her study overseas, and to pick the bill.
But I must ask such people who want to first of all counsel her for her act of aiding or abetting the doctoring of her JAMB score. She should be told in strong terms not to engage in such spurious act ever again. As for those calling for her arrest and prosecution, they must realise that she is only 19, and has confessed to her act on Channels TV, which read, “After having said and done, I realised I got 249.” But in any event, how many of our antiquated political rogues who are given to forgery and perjury have been arrested and prosecuted? Have we not by so doing insidiously reduced Nigerian to a haven for crime? Is this not the affliction that has caught up with the likes of Mmesoma? Having said all this, may I state that one of the worst things elders or leaders will ever do in life is to sow evil seeds in the life of young ones. This has become the pet culture in almost every sector of our national life. We see it in our politics, religion, education, business and so on. So stinking beasts of evil now sit with great aplomb on top of the seven mountains of culture in our nation. Don’t we know that one grain of evil sown in the life of the young today will yield many grains of evil in their life tomorrow? When expo started in our schools, it was a mere issue of students exchanging answers in exam halls, or at worst taking a few answers to questions they feel might come out in the exam into the hall. But today expo has worn bizarre garbs that beggar belief. You have sex-for-mark in which once a female student gives her body to a lecturer, she is sure of passing his course. There is fee-for-grade in which once any student pays a stipulated fee, at times in the guise of buying textbook or handout, he or she will pass the course. There is also omokirikiri or microchip. This is when a student can use codes to reduce his or her notebook or textbook into a few sheets of paper.
They also have power generator in which a smart student, at an agreed fee, is placed in the midst of other students from where he transmits the light of expo to them. There are also cases where the kids or domestic staff of decent lecturers who don’t join others in their evil ways, are used to replace scripts written under exam condition with those written days after. One can go on and on. All these ills have so shredded the fabric of our education that, in my job as corporate trainer and recruitment agent, I’ve met those who finished secondary school but can’t write the alphabets. I’ve also met graduates who can’t write simple sentences. It has become so obscene that today, some kids in elite primary schools can beat some graduates who toed this route of rot, in English, Maths and current affairs.
I think it’s about time we sat down as a nation to have conversations around ethical revolution and values reorientation. Without ethics and values, we will produce many more Mmesomas. Indeed without ethics and values, every step of progress we make today will be reversed by many steps of decay tomorrow.May God help our nation.
Okeomah writes from Aba
