Before the integrity of public and private examinations bodies go into disrepute, SUNNY IDACHABA writes on the need for such bodies to build confidence in the people.
Education is on trial in Nigeria and that applies to examinations whether public or private examinations. As a result of this, fake certificate syndrome involving public servants have taken up space in national discourse. A little peep into history would suffice.
In 1999, someone wanted to contest a House of Representatives election in his constituency. He knew that a university degree would spice up his CV. He had none, but believed he could acquire one and it worked for him though with regrets later. With a snap of the finger, within a few days, a beautiful degree certificate from the University of Toronto in Canada was printed for him. Armed with this Salisu Buhari contested and won the election. He also went ahead to become the speaker until a news magazine busted the bubble and Buhari apologised to Nigerians, but before then, the damage had been done.
In the same vein, recently, 19-year-old Mmesoma Ejikeme, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, Anambra state, sat for the University Matriculation Examination (UME), scored 249, but falsified her result to 362 points in order to secure a course of her choice.
While her state government and corporate organisations were warming up to accord one of their own accolades, financial grants and scholarship to any top class university in the world, the bubble burst again.
Mmesoma was parading a fake result which she later confirmed after a series of denials. Her case is even mild compared to one Atung Gerald from Kaduna who never participated in the 2023 UTME but forged the result and scored himself 380. This is how bad the situation is with the examination body in the country presently.
Last week, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) apprehended one Achigili Raph Ogili, an official of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), for his alleged involvement in forging the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) certificate to secure promotion within the organisation. As of the time of filing in this report, investigation was still ongoing towards unraveling the masterminds, but the ICPC indicated that while relaying the conduct to press men, there are other criminal activities carried out by the culprit in conjunction with some personnel of the university whom the anti-corruption agency described as accomplices.
Reasons for falsification
In the case of students, it has been revealed that desperation by candidates for high scores to enable them to study the course of their dreams in the university actually pushes them into falsifying their results, using a fake portal which they say it’s merely for fun.
According to the JAMB spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, “If you go to the internet, you will see very funny softwares on how to fake JAMB results for fun. They tag it for fun, meaning that it does not reflect in the database of JAMB. The software is JAMB fake results for fun.”
Corroborating of Dr. Fabian, a forgery syndicate admitted that what they do is to open a WhatsApp account to trick gullible candidates who want to increase their scores in order to have undeserved advantage.
Dislodge miracle centres
Investigations by this reporter revealed that as long as public examination centres are handed over to tutorial centres or what is known in their parlance as ‘miracle centers,’ manipulation of results would never cease. According to Matthias Enogela, a concerned parent/teacher, “A lot more happens in those tutorial centres beyond results manipulation. During registration, the prices are hiked by those centres in collusion with the management of some cyber cafes.
Remember that even the JAMB registrar had paraded the proprietor of a centre who over-charged candidates far above the amount prescribed by JAMB for UTME. It was an open secret. After this, they open portals to help manipulate scores for their candidates so that the nomenclature of ‘miracle centre’ that drives candidates to such a place would apply to them. As it is today, public examinations are no longer the true test of knowledge.”
Need for probity
While Mmesoma and others are being blamed for the criminal act perpetrated, a lot of people are not comfortable with the integrity of public examination bodies; therefore are asking such bodies to put their house in order.
For instance, the publisher of London-based NewsAfrica magazine, Moffat Ekoriko, while responding to the whole saga said, “Officials of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) should realise that they have put the agency on trial. If it is possible that their IT system can be manipulated to produce a fake result, it means that the integrity of the examinations conducted by them is suspect. I do not believe that this young girl faked her result. We need JAMB to come clean on how she was able to produce something that looks like a true copy of the JAMB result.”
In defence of JAMB
However, in what appears as a defence of the examination body, a public affairs analyst, Gerald Daramola, said, “Everything is not politics.”
While taking exception to the school of opinion that Mmesoma is a victim of ethnic profiling, he said, “You cannot be politically correct at the detriment of the truth and yet claim that you want a good society. You cannot discredit all the institutions in your country and expect outsiders to respect you. Nigerian graduates are respected outside the country today because of the foundation JAMB laid and we should not let some tribal warlords tarnish that reputation. Nigeria risks an implosion with this array of toxic citizens.”
Youngsters copying their forbearers
A journalist, Ayodele Ale, while bemoaning the situation, recalled that the trend of falsification of results is akin to corruption.
He said, “Hardly does a day passes without reports of corruption in our national dailies and it runs into millions. Somebody somewhere, falsifying records to loot state funds and corner the commonwealth to appease his or her greed. Some years back at the JAMB office, a female account clerk claimed that a mystery snake sneaked into the safe and swallowed N36 million, being money from the purchases of scratch cards from JAMB state offices and other designated centres. Shortly after, a strange monkey also carted away N70 million from a senator’s farm house!
“Now, the coming generation are proving to be ‘smarter’ and building on the false foundation laid by their forebears. This spells a doom when the acclaimed ‘future’ leaders begin to perfect the art of forgery more than their forbearers.”
Politicians showing wrong examples
Mmesoma is just a product of many crops of young Nigerians who are learning the trade very fast. This is the view of a psychologist, Dr. Sam Luka.
Liking the young girl’s scenario to the larger political scene, he said, “She should have assembled about 10 or more SANS if she has the means like some politicians do or move to court to defend her UME score. After all, almost all elected leaders are in court to defend claims to their certificates.
“Mmesoma is just a sign of the breed of Nigerians that have learnt that corruption, crookedness and brigandage are defended and rewarded. Those who carried the ballot boxes ran with them, manipulated election results are declared winners and are the leaders in Nigeria. The corrupt politicians and those who stole billions and millions from the commonwealth are the members of the ‘Elite Club of Nigeria’. They are not punished, but protected. They live luxuriously. Most government policies are for the benefit of the members of the ‘Elite Club’. Members of this club are celebrated in the society. The young ones are observant and many want to belong to this elite, but deadly club.
“Many politicians and non politicians in Nigeria have their certificates, be it birth or school, through manipulations/forgery. The school certificates were obtained either through special centres, sorting, forgery, cheating, etc.
“In Nigerian public/ government offices, snakes and monkeys swallowed millions and billions of cash in naira or dollars. Nothing happened. Such manipulators are celebrated. The fuel subsidy scam flourished. The stealing of crude flourished and was celebrated. The manipulations and the manipulators are protected and celebrated. The young ones of the Nigerian state get confused about the religious and moral education they receive both at home and school.”
Apologise, move on
On a note of caution, the immediate past minister of state for labour, Festus Keyamo, said Mmesoma should apologise to the examination body, Nigerians and move on.
“The nation should be careful not to destroy her. What she needs is counselling, correction and guidance. She obviously did not know the weight and gravity of what she was doing. As teenagers, most of us made juvenile mistakes that never came to light.
“The parents should encourage her to make a public apology to JAMB, to her family and to Nigerians after which she should be allowed to get her admission based on her actual scores. Anyone still pushing other narratives over this issue is not helping her and her family,” he said.
All examination bodies are, therefore, advised to maintain their integrity to avoid the erosion of moral values.
