In the uncivilized hours of Saturday, I was wide awake. Sleep eluded me. This lasted for about two hours – between 1.O0am and 3.15am.
Like a number of people, I have formed the very bad habit of looking at my Whatsaap messages each time I visit the rest room at night. Once I see any good story, it is goodbye to sleep until whenever because I would start a visit to all the sites for every “A, B, and C” of the story. How did we survive witout these phones and apps? I don’t want to curse whoever brought the idea of mobile phones and social media but see what it has done to us without prejudice to the, I admit, their many good sides. But, no thanks to them, our lives have been turned inside out and upside down. No secrets. No hiding place. No rest, especially for the eyes, fingers, brain. As Zebrudaya of the comedy, Masquerade would say: “God forbid bad thing.” They have taught and shown us nonsense, and more nonsense.
Now, it is because of them that a bad behavior by a wayward teenager has caused an uproar, disrupted our lives and opened the door for the barrage of insults being hauled at an industrious, intelligent and gifted tribe.
For Journalists, a bad story is a good story. When such stories break, my heart just pumps. My eyes glitter. Excitement sets in. But I experienced none of the three as I read, Saturday morning, the sad story of Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme – the young adult (19 years, not 16) who has occupied the media space in the past one week.
What I experienced was sadness and a large dose of anger. My anger was targeted at those who reduced a disturbing incident to the bashing of an ethnic group. I also experienced weakness. And hopelessness. And numbness of my fingers. And just before I dozed off to a fitful sleep, I muttered to myself: The loss of innocence, triggered by delinquent adults.
You know Mmesoma’s story. So, there is no point repeating it here, only just to, for the purpose of this write-up, briefly introduce the young girl who, brazenly, in a moment of criminal mischief, inflated her scores in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, from 249 to 362.
She is the girl who effortlessly forged her JAMB results and took the Nigerian Nation for a ride. She is the girl who looked her school Principal in the eyes and lied through her teeth. She is the girl who, publicly, dragged her school, a faith-based school, Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, in the mud. She is the girl who lied to, her parents, and deceived, almost, the leadership of her State Government. She is the girl, who knowing quite well the crime she committed, took on both her State Government and a federal institution, JAMB, and almost stripped the Board of its credibility. She is the girl who deceived well-meaning Nigerians, had them line up behind her, especially, after she appeared on Channels Television, looking disarmingly innocent, and told us how traumatized she was over the JAMB allegation. “I am traumatized. JAMB is accusing me of forging my own result”, she said with confidence, innocence written all over her face.
There was Dr Oby Ezekwesili, a former Minister for Education, who, after watching that interview, reached out to JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, and called for an investigation by technological experts. There was Mr Charles Oputa, popular as Charlie Boy, who weighed-in for her. There was a firm, (aside from Innoson Automobile Manufacturing Company which had offered her three million Naira in scholarship) which offered her free education in the USA, Canada or United Kingdom. There was, yet, another, which offered her same scholarship. There was the Commissioner for Education, Anambra State, who felt so compelled by her story that she called JAMB to query Mmesoma’s non- recognition as the highest “JAMB scorer.”
There was a lawyer who threatened to sue JAMB over her. And, I read a story to the effect that Mmesoma “has sued JAMB for N20b!
All these people lined up behind her.
There is my younger sister, a retired Military Officer, who because of her training, hardly gives in to emotions. But not in Mmesoma’s case. After watching her interview on Channels Television, with a deceptive low voice, she called to tell me: “Sister, this girl is innocent. She does not look like somebody who can get involved in forgery. She does not even understand what the case is all about. They are dragging her because they think she is a nobody.” When I asked her, Saturday morning, if she had seen Mmesoma’s confession to her guilt, she sighed and replied: “Mmesoma fall my hand.”
She is not the only one whose hands Mmesoma forced “to fall.”
There are Mmesoma’s army of supporters in the social media who started reading meaning, the Nigerian way, into why JAMB disputed her result. “It is because she is Igbo”, some said, cleanly forgetting that the rightful highest scorer, declared by JAMB, Miss Kamsiyochukwu Umeh, is also Igbo, from same State.
There was yours sincerely, who was so taken-in by Mmesoma’s innocent looks that I literally blocked, within me, any negative story on her. But that was until I read Osita Chidoka, former Aviation Minister, who dismissed Mmesoma’s scores and story as fake, and asked her to “come clean”. It woke me up to reality.
And there were the stupid, narrow-minded, individuals who, based on Mmesoma’s criminal behavior, dismissed her tribe, the Igbo, as a tribe of same character. “It runs in their blood”, they wrote and professed on social media. For this group of people, I had a good laugh. They left the big bag of forgeries they are carrying, and are accusing those who took a little from their bag of collective guilt! I will get back to this later.
The questions are: Why did Mmesoma do it? What gave her the courage to do it? We can no longer ask who helped her, or connived with her, because she has confessed to doing it alone with her Airtel phone number. What pushed her? Why did she, without a second thought, ruin her future? The 249 she genuinely scored was good enough to get her an admission into any university of her choice. JAMB’s cut-off mark is 140. So, why? I can only think of three reasons.
Firstly, I think Mmesoma’s physical appearance is deceptive. She is not an innocent girl by any stretch of imagination. She is “waywardly” hardened. She is street-wise. Only that could make her, knowing fully what she did, to contact the Ministry of Education, Anambra, and report JAMB for not announcing her as the highest scorer. A less crooked-minded teenager would not have the courage to do that. Or the courage to call JAMB the number of times she did, and still stuck to her claims even when JAMB had told her she scored 249.
Secondly, (and this is where I have sympathy for her) given her poor background, she was desperately looking for help to go through University. Knowing that every JAMB highest scorer usually gets a scholarship award, she decided to go rogue, and added two marks to the score recorded by Miss Umeh.
Thirdly, Mmesoma knows she is from a country where forgery is like a second skin, where forgery seems to be in the Nations DNA, a country forgery and manipulation are celebrated.
She knows she lives in a country where many of its leaders and VIPs are products of forgery and manipulation. They forge their birth certificates. They forge their educational certificates. Many say they have PhDs without having a first degree. They manufacture names of non-existing Universities. They forge their company papers. They forge customs papers.They forge land papers. They forge marriage certificates, divorce papers. Was it not in Nigeria that a Speaker of the House of Representatives forged a first degree certificate? We have seen Federal Ministers with forged certificates. Governors, too, who wouldn’t answer questions on the degree certificates they parade because they are fake. It is a country where everything, anything is “forgeable.” Mmesoma knows some of these things, and knows there are no consequences for such ugly behaviors.
Most recently, Mmesoma witnessed the 2023 General elections. She is 19 years old. And, perhaps, if she was lucky to get her PVC, some of which were manipulated out of reach, she voted. So, she must have witnessed all the manipulations, the rigging, the forgeries, the snatching of ballot boxes which went on. The violence in order to cheat. There were no consequences. There are still are no consequences. And, most likely, there will be no consequences. So, for her, the crime she committed pales before all that. Forgery has become the way of life in our dear country. And, we are not ashamed of it.
Those who say Mmesoma’s condemnable behavior runs in Igbo blood should pause and count their teeth with their tongue. They should count the number of high profile forgeries in Nigeria and from which tribe the “forgers” are from.
To insult the Igbo tribe because of a misdemeanor by a teenager is the height of irresponsibility. Who will cast the first stone?
When the Igbo produce an Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, it does not run in their blood. When they produce a Chimamanda Adichie, it does not run in their blood. When they produce some of the best brains in Nigeria and in the Diaspora, it does not run in their blood. When Igbo children like Mmesoma excel in some of the best Univerties in the world and become valedictorians, it does not run in their blood. But when an Igbo teenager stupidly goes rogue, just as a few others in other tribes did, it runs in the Igbo blood.
Haba!
For the records, all the vices in Igboland today – 419, yahoo-yahoo, drugs trafficking, human trafficking, human rituals, kidnapping, killings – were copied from other places. Until recently, they were alien to Igboland.
A word of advice: the old addage that “those who live in glass houses do not throw stones” still holds.
But back to Mmesoma. Let it be noted that she learnt at the feet of the many grandmasters in Nigeria. The punishment given to her by JAMB, considering the grave offence she committed, is appropriate. The recommendations by the Panel set-up by the Anambra State Government that she undergoes counseling and apologises publicly to JAMB and her school are also appropriate. She should strictly adhere to that. She also owes her parents an unadulterated apology if she has not offered it to them already. They must be finding it difficult to show their faces in public. Not a few people will point at them and snigger.
Finally, to JAMB. The Registrar says there are others who were also caught in the act. Why their names were not made public is what many people don’t still understand. True, Mmesoma opened her own can of worms by her desperation, but a crime whether hidden or open is a crime. Let’s have the names of other culprits. Here’s my plea: Unless the same punishment- three years ban – given to Mmesoma is the same given to her fellow culprits, the Board should temper justice with mercy in her case. She is in a mess already. Her name and her crime have gone viral. Her face too. For life, she will be referred to as “Mmesoma the forger, the fraudulent.” She is tainted. She may need a legal change of name to get on in life. Her name has been stigmatized.
JAMB should do two things: discard the idea of prosecuting her. And two, reduce the period she has been barred from UTME from three years to one year. One never knows.
After undergoing counseling, she could become a “JAMB Ambassador Against Forgery Of Scores.” It happens.
Comfort Obi is the Editor-in-Chief/CEO of The Source (Magazine), https://thesourceng.com. Email: [email protected], [email protected]
