Hopefully the dust raised by the recent imbroglio over the alleged forgery by Mmesoma Ejikeme of her result in the 2022/2023 JAMB UTME is settling for good. One cannot wait for that scandalous episode to finally end given some discomforting stimuli it was injecting into one’s consciousness.
What stirs my concern mostly is the pattern of emotions and narrative that characterised reactions of many people to the saga. Some persons, obviously driven by predilection, would accept no other conclusion but that JAMB was at fault. These persons projected the entire saga as a case of an innocent girl being persecuted by a dishonest and incompetent institution. For such commentators, JAMB ought to be the guilty party and nothing else.
To be sure, a careful look at the result being shown around by Mmesoma would seriously trigger suspicion. Very noticeable is how the month of May appearing on the document started with a small “m” – an impossible scenario considering that such dating (indicating when a web document was printed) emanates from an automated and standardised process that admits of no error. The Internet and computer do not produce such error! Added to this is the explanation by JAMB that the result template in possession of Mmesoma is no longer being used by JAMB; it was last used in 2021. The examination body further pointed out that the centre name on the result does not represent how the centre in question is officially designated. Considering that these are ordinarily verifiable facts, in jurisprudential terms, the burden of proof ought to shift to Mmesoma to explain how her result statement is different from that of any other candidate that sat for the same examination and how the designation of her centre does not match that of others that used the same venue.
Even after Mmesoma had admitted on a national television to have forged her result and after the committee set up by Anambra State government had released a report that corroborated JAMB’s position, there were still persons obstinately holding on to the narrative that JAMB was wrong. I know of at least two persons who had earlier accused JAMB of being too hasty with its conclusion by not waiting for the committee set up by Anambra State government to complete its task, yet when the committee’s report came out, these persons were not ready to accept it as the truth. Why? Their minds were made up; only a committee report that indicts JAMB would suit their predilection. But to be sure, given that JAMB’s result generation and issuing process is grounded in an automated system that leaves behind digital footprints, the examination body does not require any external investigation to know when someone is holding a result not emanating from its system. Therefore, the report of Anambra government committee could serve only the purpose of adding an independent stamp of validation to whatever JAMB must have verified from its system.
The misplaced anger against JAMB arises from the characteristic distrust and animosity nursed by many citizens against public institutions in the country given years of consistent failure. Thus even when evidence favours such institutions in instances of dispute as seen with JAMB and Mmesoma, people’s minds appear made up to condemn and judge such institutions. The institution must be wrong for being a Nigerian public entity!
While such attitude may be useful for venting our frustration with a system that has refused to work thus helping us cope with its pains, it is a very dangerous way to live. In the Mmesoma’s case, for instance, many people conveniently forgot our common stake in JAMB, a body that has for more than four decades held in trust our process of judging performance and allocating rewards as far as competition to gain admission into our higher institutions is concerned. They forgot that insisting that JAMB must be discredited even when evidence points differently is akin to self-destruction being that a discredited JAMB translates to discrediting of results issued to each of us by the examination body in the past as well as those to be issued to future candidates. Ironically, a lot of persons are proud of their performance and/or that of their children in JAMB exams and so ought not to gloat when JAMB is being discredited. You cannot accuse JAMB of dishonesty and/or incompetence in the case of Mmesoma and still insist on the integrity of the result issued to you by the same institution. You cannot approbate and reprobate. Our common stake in the integrity of an examination body like JAMB is profound and unassailable; a discredited JAMB will bring our educational system and all its products under an embarrassing scrutiny both within and outside the country. We’re already seeing what looks like it in the past years. It’s a whirlwind that blows no one any good. This is one profound point former aviation minister, Osita Chidoka (the owner of the centre where Mmesoma sat for her exam), attempted to make in his intervention in the matter.
Our detestation for the system has triggered so much frustration that we sometimes wish that the system sinks, forgetting that we will all sink with it. This level of self-alienation is suicidal. It was this same attitude that manifested fully during the famous #EndSARS protests where many people, in anger and frustration, forgot that the goal was to reform the police and not to destroy it, hence the attacks on police establishments and officers that eventually left all of us exposed. There’s a saying that before you make enmity with your police force ensure you first make peace with criminals. The wisdom in this saying was soon brought home to us as hoodlums, having intimidated the police, took over the public space. I was at a media establishment when I met some NYSC members doing their primary assignment there as they gloated over the news of how hoodlums were vandalising public warehouses to loot COVID-19 palliatives allegedly hoarded by politicians as well as destroying other public facilities. They were getting news updates from their smartphones and were visibly excited at the unfolding social schism, which they saw as payback to the oppressive political class. I warned them against delighting over anarchy as no one would be safe when that monster goes loose. Soon after, these corps members started getting the news that the roads to their homes had been blocked by hoodlums who set up bonfires and were harassing passersby and motorists. It was evening and time to go home, these young individuals became quite nervous and wondered how they could safely get to their houses. The chicken had come home to roost.
The point is that while it’s normal and indeed important that our public institutions be kept under constant scrutiny, the goal, however, should always be to help them become better and not to destroy them. The goal is to steady the ship of our nationhood and not to sink it. Where an institution like JAMB falters, it’s our duty to censure and correct it, but when defending it becomes a necessity, it’s also our collective duty to rise in its defence.
One of the greatest obstacles to our national growth is our tendency to always take ownership of, preserve and defend clannish interests while displaying indifference towards common interests. Hence, an average Nigerian is ready to defend his ethnicity or religion even when law, morality and justice may demand otherwise. We have seen people defend terrorism and militancy simply as a result of ethnic and religious loyalty. Many Niger Deltans defended the destruction by militants, many northerners would have sympathy for the murderers of Akaluka and Deborah for blasphemy just because of their emotional attachment to Islam, and many Igbo people have defended the novel terror in the southeast just because of their sympathy for Biafra, IPOB and Kanu. We saw this clannish thinking once again in the public reactions to Mmesoma’s case. In all this, what suffers is our common interest, our common goal of evolving a stable and secure nation that is livable for all.
Thus, our common interest has become an orphan which no one wants to nurture. This is why a lot of persons want change but do not want to be part of the change. In every election year, we desire to elect leaders that will transform our nation apparently without being conscious of the inevitable fact that when such leaders are eventually recruited, we shall all be summoned to be part of the change. We will no longer enjoy the privilege of getting employment or university admission through that our well-placed uncle or family friend; everything will be given on merit. We will no longer be able to abuse our office as civil servants by demanding for gratification before we offer service to members of the public, come late to work or regularly absent from duty post without consequences, influence our posting, steal public money, or falsify our age to delay retirement etc. We will no longer be able to influence NYSC postings for ourselves or for others. In fact, all manner of corruption must end.
The fact that we do not see ourselves as part of that system that requires change is in my view the biggest obstacle to the change we crave for in this country. This is why some persons will readily come out to condemn JAMB yet will pay for their children to sit for exams at so-called special centres, get someone to impersonate them at exams, and give bribe to have their child who scored lower given admission to the detriment of another who scored higher. Yet such a person goes about desiring that JAMB and the entire system of education change!
In the same vein, once anyone has exploited the nepotism and favouritism that widely characterise job recruitment in this country, such a person would be a bloody hypocrite to criticise incompetence of public officials and public institutions in the country. You cannot get your underperforming child to be employed as a teacher and yet have the moral justification to complain that the education system is underperforming.
Those who want the police to change and want SARS to ‘end’ must stop using the police to settle personal disputes; they must stop bribing the police to arrest and lock up persons they have problems with. That the police is intervening in civil matters (such as breach of loan agreement) contrary to the law is because we citizens do go to them with bribes to arrest and deal with such persons we feel have offended us. A friend once boasted how someone paid the police to arrest him and when he was released he paid the same police to arrest the same person. “He got me locked up for a night but I paid higher to get him locked up for three days,” he gloated. Ironically, this friend was so vocal on his Facebook page calling for ending of SARS and all forms of abuse of power by the police during that famous 2020 protests!
What we have with us is a situation where everyone is angry with the system yet working hard to ensure that the system remains unchanged. It’s a curious case of self-alienation and self-destruction. We tend to always distance ourselves from the system, treating it as an external entity instead of an integral part of our social existence. We tend to fight and quarrel with it instead of embracing it, repairing and nurturing it. The anger against JAMB in the Mmesoma case is, therefore, indirectly a resentment against ourselves and our collective refusal to be the change we desire. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.
Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
Nigerians always like to chase shadows. There is more to this that meet the eye.
Very good argument Dr Henry, I trust you! I like your position about the expectations of people who consistently contribute their quota to the decay in the Nigerian system, yet want a change. However, I pray that we get good leaders who can lead with good examples, because people emulate their leaders personal styles. It’s only with such leaders that we can see the expected change, we have been praying for. But how can we get such leaders when most of us are beclouded with ethnic and religious sentiments in elections? It is only a miracle that can help Nigeria in the situation we see ourselves today.