Southeast: Protecting A Race By All Means
By Aminu Iyawa
Until the 1990s, most states in the North only heard of miracle centers in the South where secondary school pupils converge to sit for their WAEC exams that qualify them to gain admission in to the nation’s various higher institutions.
I am a trained Grade 2 primary school teacher that graduated in the mid-seventies and out about 60 students or so in my class, less than one quarter passed the WAEC at first attempt. The bulk of us had to re-sit on a number of attempts over many years.
The culture of honesty came naturally for most Northerners. Therefore, nobody dared to cheat his way either through connivance with invigilators or travel to miracle centers to experience the magic of scoring high marks.
Yet, even at that time, we have been hearing about candidates in the South paying money to some education cartel members to be able to pass their WAEC or Grade 2 exams.
We have also been hearing stories about how some candidates from the South use the certificate of a family member to either gain admission in the nation’s leading universities or gain lucrative jobs in government or private establishments.
It wasn’t until the 1990’s when mostly spouses of members of the military serving in the region begun opening private schools that we started hearing about WAEC withholding results of certain centers due to alleged cheating.
By the turn of the millennium the ugly phenomenon became universal and the culprits as well the beneficiaries mostly got away with it.
It is therefore no surprise that standard of education has fallen drastically and the cancer has now spread to employment in all sectors, where millions of Naira change hands for securing employment in especially the ‘A’ class sectors.
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The recent exposure of Ejikeme Mesoma, by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for fraudulently inflating her results and claiming to be the top scorer in the country for 2023, takes the problem of cyber 419 to a new level.
Ejikeme’s latest claim that she printed the result in question from the JAMB portal is an insult on the entire nation.
First of all, there is no doubt that JAMB is a credible institution and will never cry foul where there is none.
Secondly, there is no doubt that somebody or some people must have hacked or played role in the the hacking of JAMB portal to perpetrate the act on her behalf.
Worst, however, is the mass support coming from the Southeast, including from those who ought to know, without an iota of doubt that fraud was committed. It is somehow more perplexing to see that a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has joined the ethnic jingoists in supporting the girl by cleverly calling for forensic investigation – something that can be easily manipulated to exonerate her and pass the buck somewhere else.
As one of my friends put it in a discussion this morning: their behavior only continues to portray the Southeaterners as people who cannot be trusted, because they support their own, even in the face of truth that is in black and white.
In fact there are a lot of precedence to that, including their support to Former Senate Deputy President, Ekweremadu, who was found guilty by the UK legal system, the Nnamdi Kanu case and so on.
JAMB should persue this case and prosecute Ejikeme so that an example is set. Our teens must be taught lesson that they can not ease their way to success and fame through fraud.
The good people of the Southeast should also support JAMB to prosecute the culprits and not be seen as jungoists protecting lawbreakers at the cost of their reputation.
Aminu Iyawa is a retired diplomat
