For many Nigerians, the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board is inextricably linked to the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination which holds many memories and horrors for them.
Long recognized as the door that opens into the world of premier learning in Nigeria – university education- UTME has hardly ever failed to provide endless drama for many, slamming the door to university education so forcefully in their faces that they wondered if there was anything personal.
Stories abound indeed – of six years of painstaking secondary school education reduced to middling scores on jamb result printouts and the consequent long years of staying at home.
Nigerians also remember the harrowing figure of five billion Naira which has become the subject of judicial proceedings as having been misappropriated by Dibu Ojerinde the former JAMB registrar. Nigerians also remember that it was in the body’s office in Makurdi that a snake was said to have swallowed the sum of thirty-six million Naira in one of the most ludicrous corruption stories ever to come out of Nigeria. So, for many Nigerians, JAMB is synonymous with cruelly shattered dreams and shocking sleaze.
Thus, when the news first broke that young Ms Nmesoma who had allegedly emerged as the best student in the 2023 UTME examination, was a little more than a fraud, Nigerians swiftly broke into sharply divided camps.
The young girl, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School Uruagu,Nnewi was said to have scored 362 in 2023 and become a national sensation leading to a gift of N3,000,000 to her by Chukwuma Innocent, the Chief Executive Officer of Innoson Motors.
She had emerged as a symbol of the boundless brilliance many young Nigerians possess in spades and another breakout star of Anambra State’s long strides in education, until JAMB disputed her claims, contested her sudden stardom, declared her result forged and branded her a fraud.
For many Nigerians, as soon as the scandal broke, it was all about another Nigerian institution headhunting victims for its incompetence and ineptitude very much like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did during and after the 2023 general elections.
For those who see Nigeria only in shades of tribe and tongue, Nmesoma’s travail is yet another piercing thorn in the crown of thorns the Igbo have been forced to wear at the stake called Nigeria.
A few years ago,JAMB moved with the times to make its iconic UTME entirely computer based. The injection of technology into such a crucial exam was made to tap into the inexhaustible befits of technology as well as safeguard the integrity of the examinations.
Despite an initial sea of glitches, it is far to say that the body has acquitted itself creditably with the steep challenges of conducting such examinations in a confidence-sapped country like Nigeria.
The current saga has, however, presented the body with its sternest test however with a David versus Goliath kind of setting where an army of tribal bigots and cynics form the cheering and jeering crowd.
Yet, again,JAMB has insisted that the result was forged in what appears to be the handiwork of fraudsters. Whether or not Nmesoma was aware and set out to deceive and defraud Nigerians is yet to be discovered. She has vigorously defended her innocence as much as JAMB has its integrity, and it appears that no more than an innocent mistake has raised a national cloud of rumours and recriminations.
But it is rather unsurprising. In a country where public officers and aspiring politicians forge certificates at will and shamelessly lay claims to outlandish educational qualifications they never had the aptitude to acquire, it would shock little if the young are taking a cue.
In a country where many manipulate their age to hang in for as long as they can in the civil service, it is not at all surprising that forgery has become one of Nigeria’s most lucrative businesses.
In a country where election results are manipulated in broad day light, and somehow manage to slip through the shredder of judicial proceedings, it no longer makes the jaw drop that many people are fast learning the ropes of mendacity.
Nigerians must look at themselves closely. A country that has lost its way as well as its will to recover its moral compass has become a space where anything goes, a large stage where a remorseless cast of corruption plays out its chilling script.
As it appears that the country is on a downward spiral and it would be interesting to see if anything can be done to check the fall.
By Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com
