Mmesoma and our nakedness, Wale Bakare
As we eagerly anticipated the release of our Secondary School Certificate Examinations (WAEC) results, the anticipation was stratospheric. It had been a long journey to this point and combining academics with Military training was no mean feat. Some had handled it better than others and were proficient in both the Military training and the academic side of things. Some were more of the soldierly persuasion and it was obvious were their hearts were. Then you had a few who knew at the time they would never make a career of the military but had no idea what they were going to do as civilians. I wont tell you which group I fell into. I can only hint that I have always been a late bloomer, thank you very much.
There were three likely destinations awaiting after our passing out parade and the eventual release of the WAEC results. Of course, there were a couple of other issues that would come into play to affect where each Boy could possibly end up but we all had clear ideas of who was suited for what. The Universities beckoned for the most academically inclined. You needed 5 credits and a JAMB pass to make that happen. Next was The Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). The academic bar was not set so high but you still had to go through a rigorous selection process to get in. The 3rd and final destination was ‘The Unit’. This meant you had not done enough to make it to the University or NDA and so you had to remain in your Army Unit where all graduating Boys were first posted to as full-fledged Soldiers with the rank of Private, having gone through all the requisite Military training to qualify for that during your time in the Nigeria Military School. My Unit was the Nigeria Army Electrical and Mechanical Corps in Lagos.
So we looked forward to the release of the results, not just for ourselves but to also see what J.C. would score. We all expected him to get A1 in all subjects. He had been the brightest kid in class from the moment we got in to school up till we left. He was an equal opportunity A1-getter. It didn’t matter what subject it was. He was one of those strange kids who could get a Distinction in Additional Mathematics as easily as he would get it in History or Commerce (which was a subject I had never heard of until after leaving NMS). As they would say in today’s parlance: he was a ‘science student with a touch of arts’! It was no surprise when the results came out that J.C. had the best results in our set, if not in the entire country. 9 subjects, 9 As. With almost all being A1s. I was prouder of his result than I was of my own. I went home to have the conversation with my father and then went on to ‘report to Unit’! By the way, J.C. is a retired General now. And I later went to the University. Let’s just say thank God for second chances. That is a story for another day.
The airwaves have been inundated lately with the story of Mmesoma Ejikeme, the young lady alleged to have written her JAMB scores herself. Apparently unsatisfied with the score of 249 which JAMB had ‘given’ her, she decided she would rather score 362, which would make her the best in the entire country. Her ‘feat’ was met with the appropriate quantum of excitement. Innoson immediately announced a Scholarship to the tune of N3,000,000. The State Government would not be left out of honouring Mmesoma for her record-setting feat. This was however to be her undoing. Someone in the Ministry of Education did the sensible thing: reach out to JAMB for verification. And that is when things took an unsavoury turn. Dr. Fabian Benjamin, who was reached from the Ministry, checked and discovered that the result was a fake. From what we have since learnt from JAMB, she had carried out a rather audacious forgery on an old result notification from 2021 and claimed it as her result in 2023. I must confess that when the news first broke, my sympathies were for the young lady as I suspected that the Examination Body must have made an error in giving her the wrong results. I expected the Chairman of the Board, who has been making it possible for us to believe in the possibility of a new Nigeria since his appointment, to come out with an apology for the distress caused the young lady. That would have been in tandem with his public character. I (and most other Nigerians) were further convinced of the fact that she had been dealt an unjust hand when she went a step further to release a video in which she pointedly accused JAMB of lying and causing her trauma. It did not matter that she was obviously coached in the video. I even advised she should sue for a hefty sum since the Body had all this money that Oloyede had been making since he was appointed. Who would ever have thought that JAMB could ever become a money-making Organisation? The same JAMB where snakes swallowed millions? Wonders never end.
Anyway, the video seemed to have piqued the guys at JAMB because they came out swinging. The JAMB Spokesperson has been all over the media explaining in very simple terms, the way and manner this fraud was purportedly carried out. He even went so far as to challenge anyone who can show that JAMB has ever released a conflicting result to step up with evidence and the Board would give them a million Naira. I am not sure anyone has taken up this dare. Meanwhile, the Mmesoma matter, rather than it being treated strictly as the criminal act gone wrong that it is, has been dressed in ethnic and political colourations by some very irresponsible Nigerians. And they abound on both sides of the divide. From those who have, quite despicably, garbed the offender in her ethnic identity to those who have started pushing the narrative of ethnic victimisation and claiming that she is being ‘attacked’ because she is Igbo. This delusional assertion does not take into consideration the fact that the real winner of the title of Best Candidate was another female, and not just Igbo, but one from the same Anambra State. Jamb has quite rightly invoked its statutes and banned her from writing another examination for 3 years while withdrawing her real result of 249, which quite curiously, should have been enough to secure a place in the University.
That should however not be the end of the matter. I may be naïve but I do not believe this crime was conceived by Mmesoma. I do not believe she could have had the audacity to go about meeting people and receiving awards knowing full well that she forged the result she is parading. I believe there is more to this than we have seen. Even though we live in a country where certificate forgery has for so long been seen as a ‘soft’ crime, and where claims of academic achievements are never queried or interrogated, such a brazen attempt to hoodwink the entire country by one so young should make us sit up and think of where we have arrived. Whoever aided and abetted her must be fished out and charged appropriately, even if they are family members. The consequences of what they have done to this brilliant young girl will remain with her for the rest of her life. But why would anyone think it was alright to do what they did?
It is because we have been for a long time a country of impunity. Mmesoma has only pointed a torchlight on our nakedness. A country that celebrates its criminals and elevates its rogues. It is common knowledge that an audit of the educational qualifications declared by a good number of those in public offices are of the same authenticity as a N750 note. They flaunt all sorts of qualifications and then enter their Secondary School Certificates in their INEC Forms. The reason for that is quite obvious. Even when they are caught, they get less than a smack on the wrist. We were all here when a Former Speaker of the House of Representatives was removed for academic certificates and age falsifications. He committed fraud, forgery, perjury, and theft. These were all offences with clearly spelt out sanctions in the laws of the land. What happened to him? He eventually stepped down from his position. The joke was however on us. The President at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, promptly appointed him as the Chairman of the body that is in charge of developing the curriculum for Nigeria’s educational system, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council. Now if that is not sticking the middle finger out at the whole country, I don’t know what is.
