Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme is a 19-year-old brilliant student of
Anglican Girls’ Secondary School, Uruagu Nnewi, Anambra State. She is from
Enugu State and wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)
this year, obtaining her results: English: 64, Physics: 54, Biology: 74, and Chemistry: 57 with a total aggregate score of 249 out of 400, establishing a
62% above average result. She is science inclined and certainly situates at the
upper chamber of academic prowess. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board
(JAMB) has set a low threshold score of 140 as a cut-off mark for admission into
the University this year. She scored well above that mark and was graciously on
her way to the University until the Devil struck and her village people
remembered her. She didn't have any need to be called a criminal or even be
abused by anyone. This is a classic case of someone waking up in the morning
and deciding to be her own enemy and stealing what she doesn't need. Yes, the
Devil remembered her, cause the Devil is the only being who was created perfect
in beauty and lacked nothing but because of his inordinate ambition to be
worshipped like the Highest God, wanted to overthrow God, to take over the
whole universe and be referred to as the Almighty. He was defeated and
dethroned and reduced to a Serpent to eat dust all the days of his life.
There's no doubt that the reason for this ugly turn of events
is simple - greed, insatiability and trying to be someone else or beat everyone
else. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released the scores of
candidates who applied for admission and subsequently announced Nkechinyere
Umeh as the candidate with the highest score of 360. Obviously being aware of
the pomp and pageantry that follow the celebration of the number one in UTME,
and the obvious perks that come with it, Mmesoma decided to forge her result
and certificate to be the undisputed recipient of such honours. In her phantom
world, Mmesoma confirmed that she single-handedly forged the result before
approaching a cyber cafe for printing, showing a UTME result of an aggregate score
of 362, with English: 98, Physics: 89, Biology: 94, and Chemistry: 81. She
consequently protested to the State Government that she scored 362 and ought to
have been so honoured.
Her audacity is deafening. Initially, when she flew the kite
of her superlative performance, JAMB promptly refuted it, but she decided to
fight on. She countered JAMB'S claim that she forged her certificate and even
made a video flaunting her certificate and showing her face and defending her
actions. It was this brazen act of bravery that rallied people around her
because most people believed that an innocent young lady will not be too brave
to put a face to her claim if she were lying. Again, since the Devil, who is a
liar and the Father of it struck, it turned out that she was lying.
The most troubling revelation in the Mmesoma saga is the
fact that she is from Enugu State and may have just adopted the template she
may have learnt from the present Governor of her State, Peter Mbah. Recall that
Peter Mbah has been having a running battle regarding the fake National Youth
Service Corp (NYSC) certificate he filed as part of the requirement for his
qualification to be Governor of Enugu State. The law is clear that it's the
institution that issued a certificate that determines whether its certificate
is genuine or fake. The NYSC Director, publicly, on a television station, said
that Peter Mbah's NYSC certificate is fake and didn't emanate from them. He
made it clear that Peter Mbah had met him privately and he explained clearly to
him that the certificate is fake just as JAMB explained to Mmesoma that her
certificate was fake. However, rather than towing the honorable path by
resigning, he snubbed the NYSC Director and even went to court to prevent NYSC
from testifying that his certificate is fake, just as Mmesoma refused to accept
JAMB'S verdict and fought on.
He used the strategy to gain time to be sworn in as
Governor, thereby creating the impression that one can benefit from his own
wrong and motivating children like Mmesoma to tow that ignoble path of
dishonour. After being sworn in, the problem continued, as the court refused to
prevent NYSC from testifying. They testified that Peter Mbah's certificate is
fake in an open court. At this stage, even Mmesoma gave up, acknowledged her
mistake and apologized. The former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, at this
stage, threw in the towel and resigned as the Minister of Finance. Peter Mbah
should save the citizens of Enugu State the trauma and shame and resign immediately
from office. Students like Mmesoma learnt to have the audacity to forge their
certificates from their Governor, who forged his own and is doubling down on
this perfidy.
The ugly turn of events now in which the embattled Governor
of Enugu State is eliciting the assistance of the State Security Service (SSS),
whose duty is to protect and secure the country from any internal security
threat the country, to meddle with the issue of certificate forgery, is
desperation taken too far. What has the forging of the NYSC certificate to do with
the security of Nigeria? Getting such an organisation to come to court to
testify on such a matter deserves thorough investigation by the Federal Government
because the law that established the SSS didn't grant such powers to it. The rule of law is one of the pillars of democracy and the SSS should know better and
remain on its lane and restrict itself to the duties assigned to them by the
law.
It's important to note that Peter Mbah didn't need to have the
NYSC certificate to qualify to run as Governor, just as Mmesoma didn't need to
forge her certificate to enter the university. A secondary school certificate
would have sufficed (See Section 131(d) of the 1999 Constitution), but greed
and dishonesty and trying to be someone that he is not, led him to forge his
certificate which is a disqualifying criterion (See Section 137(1)(j) of the
1999 Constitution). Since the Devil has struck and Peter Mbah's village people
have remembered him, the most honourable path of redemption for him to take now
is to resign as Governor of Enugu State and apologize to everyone, especially
the NYSC, so that younger children like Mmesoma will learn that criminality
doesn't pay and above all, it's not an Enugu State way of life. I was
embarrassed when someone confronted me that we are struggling to remove the
presidential candidate of APC on account of forgery, yet Enugu State indigenes
are artful forgers of certificates, starting from their Governor. I was quick
to say that Peter Mbah learnt it from PDP, not Enugu State. I so plead with
Peter Mbah to save us from this embarrassment and just leave honourably and
immediately. We must learn a great lesson here that contentment with godliness
is great gain.
JAMB has to be commended. In this era of institutional
failures in Nigeria and systemic corruption, it is incumbent on citizens to
commend any institution that singles itself out for transparency,
accountability, diligence and discipline. Starting from the days of analogue
dealings in JAMB, results were written manually, collated manually, published
manually and sent to the candidates manually. It took months for the candidates
to know their scores and the universities they were posted. Examination
malpractices were rife and confidence in JAMB results was being eroded. On the
appointment of competent and honest leadership at the JAMB, they made a
determination on using electronic technology to conduct the operations at JAMB.
The UTME became electronically written and results were transmitted electronically to
the candidates in real-time after the examination. They needed not to promise
heaven and earth to Nigerians to achieve this or collect N400b from the
Government to score this feat, they continued in their determination and
dedication to their objectives until they got to the level that they can beat
their chest that no candidate of the UTME can effectively forge UTME result
without being caught and exposed.
That's why they were confident in their submissions during
the Mmesoma saga. JAMB humbly submitted itself and its findings to public
scrutiny without let or hindrance. When Mmesoma started insisting that she scored
362, the Anambra State government set up a committee which invited Ejikeme Joy
Mmesoma, the Principal of Anglican Girls Secondary School, and officials of
JAMB for an interactive session with the Committee. JAMB officials led by Dr.
Fabian Benjamin, the Head of Public Affairs presented the detailed processes and
procedures involved in JAMB admissions, the policy changes that have occurred
in the release of UTME scores since 2021 and what specifically transpired
between the candidate Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma with registration number:
20230639047FF in her quest to obtain her JAMB score. JAMB disclosed that the
candidate was well informed of her correct score from JAMB. They were so
detailed that they revealed that the template Mmesoma used to forge her
certificate was the outdated 2021 template which was no more in existence. They
convinced everybody including Mmesoma herself. Her Father apologized alongside
her. The sword that the majority of people lifted up to strike the JAMB officers
landed heavily on Mmesoma's head and the severity of the blows landed her on
the verge of suicide. Special thanks and commendation should be sent to Prof
Ishaq Oloyede for making Nigerians and even the international community believe
that they can still trust a public institution in Nigeria or at least give some
of them the benefit of the doubt. Whoever is interested in seeing a new Nigeria must be
excited at this glorious prospect of a new dawn.
Contrast this with Prof Mahmood Yakubu's Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) with his Mouthpiece on voter education,
Festus Okoye, who promised Mars and Mercury, and who inspired the citizens of
Nigeria to demand that the National Assembly amend the Electoral Act to legitimize
the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and other technologies
for the accreditation of voters and transmission and transfer of election
results electronically from the polling units in real time on election day to
the INEC Collation System and the uploading of the scanned copy of the hard
copy of election results unto the IREV Portal for the viewing pleasure of all
Nigerians. Some members of the National Assembly resisted granting INEC this
power of electronic transfer of results from the polling units on election day,
citing the possibility of network failure that could affect the transfer. INEC
fought relentlessly to convince Nigerians that nothing can affect the transfer
of results electronically from the polling units on election day, saying that
they will have a backup, if need be, to prevent such network failure. They
testified before the Legislators that network will not affect the deployment of
the technological innovations for elections. Indeed, the President then refused
to sign the Bill passed by the National Assembly without the provision for
electronic transfer of results because of INEC'S insistence that with the
provision, they would guarantee free, fair and credible elections. They needed
the electronic transmission of results to safeguard the manually collated
results from manipulation at collation centres which destroy the credibility of
elections in Nigeria. The National Assembly was compelled to amend the
Electoral Act to accommodate the concerns of INEC.
However, on the 25th of February, 2023, INEC conducted the
presidential election and refused intentionally to transmit or transfer
electronically the election results from the polling units and failed to upload
the results electronically on IREV Portal for Nigerians to understand what was
going on. To rub salt to injury, INEC refused to tell Nigerians what was going
on until they announced their fake results. It was after they announced the
fake results that they informed Nigerians that they had a technical glitch that
prevented them from transmitting the results electronically. Rather than
leaving out the electronic transfer of results completely since they have
admitted that they couldn't transmit on that day, they tried to update the electronic
transfer of results with their fake results and this resulted in a scandalous
disaster. 18,088 polling units’ results were blurred, blank, filled with
pictures of human beings and animals, mutilated and illegible. Only about 31%
of the results were found to be accurate at the time INEC was declaring its
results. All attempts to cover up these atrocities failed, prompting the
international community and the local election observers to condemn the
election as failing to meet up the lowest standards of credibility for
acceptable elections. More than four months after the ill-fated declaration of
fake results, Festus Okoye, on national television, confessed that he doesn't
know the technical glitch that happened. Yes, he doesn't know, because no glitch
happened.
To date, INEC has not been able to defend its results or
reconcile its manually declared results with the electronically transmitted
results. Lack of transparency and operational, institutional, systemic failures
and corruption compromised people's trust in the process. If INEC were not
hiding anything, they would have come clean to the whole world and presented
their facts, supported with their electronic device for storing and processing information to convince the world like JAMB did and silence their critics.
It's obvious that INEC is the one now that is silenced because INEC is the
Mmesoma in this case that has a result it generated which it cannot defend
because it manipulated the electronic process to produce fake result.
