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Today, I can comfortably accuse us of committing a grave crime against Mmesoma Ejikeme, the 19-year-old accused of forgery. At three different levels, a Pontius Pilate arose among us and conspired to collectively destroy the future of this rising star. JAMB played the first Pilate, followed by Anambra State Government. Finally, Yoruba-Igbo ethnic nationalists drove the final nail in the coffin. Each of the three groups mindlessly offloaded their peculiar biases on the shoulders of this poor girl without resorting to the law or applying commonsense and empathy. Discerning members of the public could see through their biases, which betray how governments and citizens destroy rather than give young people opportunity to live through their mistakes. We should not have allowed JAMB, Anambra State and Nigerian ethnic chauvinists on social media to get away with what they did to this poor girl.
Here is a summary of the case. Mmesoma printed a result from a spoof website that misrepresented her Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination scores, She subsequently flaunted the fabricated result on social media. She probably thought the whole thing a joke. She could also have been chasing clout on social media. Or it could have been an act of desperation to remedy what she thought was a let down on her JAMB performance.
Here are facts that are not contested in the ensuing controversy. Mmesoma is a brilliant student who scored an above average 249 points (62%) in the JAMB examination. This performance should qualify for merit-based admission in almost all disciplines in the university. Additionally, her teachers testify that she has been a consistent highflyer, recording a statewide best score in a high school common entrance examination. She then makes a mistake, a single mistake, and Nigerians lost their heads. For this single blunder, there is no evil name that she has not been associated with. I’ve read netizens describing her as “young scam artist,” and an “upcoming Hushpupi,” in cringe-worthy rants.
JAMB played Pontius Pilate in the handling of the case. The agency was not interested in following the girl to where she wrote JAMB and where she printed her result and has not made any comment on the existence of spoof sites that mirror JAMB and lead students astray. It was only interested in proving that she fabricated the result she flaunted. The agency also had the temerity to rejoice that many other students had followed the path in the past and were found out and punished. Even after inviting the secret police into the matter, it was only interested in showing that the girl forged her results. There was nothing to suggest that the secret police was also mandated to investigate the root causes of the problem – the existence of spoof sites that routinely embarrass JAMB.
Anambra State Government quickly followed the JAMB playbook. For the record, Mmesoma’s parents live in Anambra but are not from Anambra. It should be expected that a certain level of detachment, if not disinterest, will overshadow the work of the government panel that investigated the scandal. Predictably, this was evident from the panel’s conclusion and recommendation. The panel concluded that Mmesoma acted alone because she refused to name her accomplices! It recommended that she be subjected to psychological examination. One wonders why it did not go further to suggested psychiatric treatment.
As for social media netizens, the controversy quickly degenerated into the perennial ethnic contest between the Yoruba and the Igbo. Igbo irridentists, in an asinine way, stoutly defended Mmesoma and charged that she was being persecuted because of where she came from. Yoruba ethnic nationalists bought the fight and began attacking the entire Igbo for the sin of a school girl. They probably forget that one corner of their enclave is the undisputed forgery capital of Nigeria (Oluwole). Additionally, the presidential election case between an Igbo and a Yoruba candidate is substantially about forgery. It is also possible that they remember, since it was easy to see that the antagonists are the same netizens defending a similar offense by one of the candidates. Reasonable people kept looking on in dismay as the issue degenerated into the perennial and stupid ethnic supremacy battle.
Interestingly, Enugu State where Mmesoma comes from looked on sheepishly as the girl was systematically destroyed and damaged for life.
The Mmesoma case opened my eyes to what the Nigerian Police Force has been trying to accomplish through POCACOV – the campaign against cultism and vices among our youths. This programme recognizes a three-level path that individuals travel on their way to joining the underworld of organized criminal gangs (OCGs).
At the lowest rung of the ladder is the blue zone called “paradise” where the innocents operate. However, any number of adversities or circumstances could move this individual up the ladder to the middle, yellow zone. It is at this zone that they begin to get information on how to cut corners in life, acting on various impulses. Any effective crime management strategy must recognize the push factors that predispose youths on the yellow zone to move up the ladder to the red zone where hardened criminals operate.
There are many forces that move youths up this ladder. Inattentive parenting and difficult childhood contribute. So does government (through bad governance), churches (through ill-digested prosperity theology), and peer group pressure. It is therefore laughable when a panel of professors conclude that Mmesoma acted alone. If we believe them, can we conclude that her prior academic achievements came from the same mindset that a psychological examination will cure? The panel is however not to blame because its members may not be aware of the intrinsic factors that predispose the innocents to cross from the yellow to the red line, which is what the police is experimenting with using “prevent policing” that POCACOV champions.
Prevent policing acts as a pull factor to rescue youths from yellow and back to the blue zone. The idea is to ultimately cut off supplies of manpower that OCG groups recruit from the yellow zone. Mmesoma is now in this yellow zone. JAMB has provided the first push factor, and Anambra follows with a second. The things we write in the social media will provide the final impetus for her to either kill herself or be recruited into the red zone. And this will be the case by the time she finishes serving the three-year ban that JAMB has unilaterally imposed.
It should have been a battle for Nigeria to save this bright star, rather than allow her to fall deeper into the underworld of the red zone or tumble into irredeemable depression for life. We need to understand what went wrong with this highflier. We need to honestly and diligently investigate the forces that acted to push her to the yellow band. Both the Anambra State Government and JAMB are merely interested in preserving their reputations as citadels of excellence. The Department of State Security has wisely withdrawn from the fray, understanding the hypocrisy playing out at both the State Government and the Federal Agency.
Mmesoma remains alone in a cold dark world. Her only hope of rescue from the dungeon that the Pontius Pilate judgements pushed her into is Enugu State Government, her state of origin. It is always interesting how Nigerians unite to inflict maximum punishment on the petty thief while allowing the pirates of national misery to get away with blue murder. And what a petty thief this has turned out to be. Debunking her wild claims on social media, withdrawing the scholarship offered by Innoson Motors, and “showing her pepper” on social media should have been enough disgrace for her foolish action. Because, come to think of it, what is her crime? What is JAMB punishing her for? Is it for flexing on social media, something that more than 90 per cent of netizens daily indulge in without batting an eyelid? Will JAMB withdraw my university degree certificate, or my 1980 admission, if tomorrow I were to take to Twitter to claim that I was the best JAMB candidate during my time and brandish a fabricated result as “evidence”?
