A Nation of Riggers

It took a front-page report by Vanguard newspaper Monday before the West African Examination Council (WAEC) was roused into admitting the possibility of its own failing. For as low as N5,000, Geography 2 (Essay) and Geography (Objective) papers were reportedly on sale in parts of Lagos long before questions were officially distributed in examination halls. Friday, WAEC announced a re-write of the papers.The Vanguard reporter had acted as undercover and succeeded, like many others, in purchasing the said papers from the “black-market”. The bromide was splashed on the front-page of Vanguard for the Doubting Thomases to see. According to the Vanguard estimate, almost all the papers taken since SSCE started last month had leaked. They include Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Electricity, Auto Mechanics, Agricultural Science, Metal Work (Practical), Mathematics, Economics, English Language, Agricultural Science 2 (Objective and Essay) and Wood Work 3 (Objective and Essay).Predictably, after the report, WAEC had announced it was taking urgent steps to investigate the matter and take measures to “safeguard the integrity of the examination.”Thank God, it reacted swiftly this time. Otherwise, the standard response would be blanket cancellation of results of locations where such leakages were reported. But that hardly solves the problem. Nor does it take care of the interests of the rest of the innocent population who truly burned the proverbial midnight candles. In this perfidy, operators of private colleges, study centres and tutorial schools are said to be the worst culprits. Sadly, this academic fraud has a multiplier effect. Students who enter WAEC halls through such business (sorry, coaching) centres often come out in “flying colours.” Their names are, in turn, flaunted by tutors as fruits of their own exemplary pedagogical acumen. Then, the gullible parents are tempted to rush their own wards there by the next session. What a fraud! Truth be told, it is incorrect to say that exam leakage/malpractice is a recent phenomenon in Nigeria. The word “expo” “giraffe method” or “micro chip” surely has its ontology in antiquity. In our own time, the fad was the romanticisation of “Indian talisman” or “magic pen” or waking in the dead of night to recite “special Psalms” to pass examinations. But reliance on such formulas was never something you openly bragged about. Nothing near the fashion cheating seems to have become now. As if to confirm how widespread malpractices have become, members of Ondo State executive cabinet were last week drafted by the state governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, to their respective constituencies as emergency invigilators. Agagu himself personally took over a secondary school in Akure. All this is only symptomatic of one malaise: cheating as culture. Not even the primary schools are spared any more. Such was the find of my colleague, Waheed Odusile, not too long ago when his little boy got home after writing the national common entrance examination for Federal Government Colleges. At dinner table that evening, the boy was usually quiet. Bitterness was written all over his face. When he finally regained composure, he cleared his throat and began to narrate how almost every other boy in the examination hall earlier in the morning brought “micro chips” presumably procured for them by their parents. He could, therefore, not understand why his own father didn’t consider it unfair to have allowed him go to the battled-field “unarmed” unlike others. One could only imagine the horrific toll such encounter would have exacted on the little boy’s psychology: that burning the midnight candle is now old-fashioned. Alas, all that is correct now is to build your hope on “micro chip”.Just as time changes, the technology of cheating has also transformed. “Micro chips” of old now even seems to find expression in the dare-devilry of “mercenary” (impersonator). In fact, a JAMBITE reportedly committed suicide in Delta State penultimate Saturday. Reason? The “mercenary” hired by his devoted father to write the JAMB papers for him failed to show up at the appointed hour. Convinced that he would, therefore, be unable to enter university the next academic session, the poor boy applied the Final Solution.But this is not the kind of culture that breeds a good society. Viewed critically, it surely will be naïve to isolate this rising incidence of “mercenary” from perceived fall in the standard of education. It is, however, debatable whether this could substantially be cited as another reason for the functional illiteracy of Mr. Bayo Yussuf, our great former ambassador to Togo (and now a ministerial nominee from Ondo State), to confidently say Tuesday at the senate chamber that “NEEDS and wants are different things because NEEDS are backed up with wants”. Yet, the simple question asked was: “Please, define NEEDS (Obasanjo’s economic blueprint packaged by Professor Charles Soludo).”Thank God, somebody was conscientious enough to ask that question. Until Adolphus Wabara fell recently as senate president, the common practice was to ask ministerial nominees to “take a bow” once “welfare” had been supplied (ask Nasir El-Rufai). Had Yussuf provided “welfare” before appearing before the senate chambers Tuesday, all he probably would have been asked is “Please, take a bow”. Then, we would never have known that a whole ambassador does not even understand what NEEDS is. Yet, it forms a substantial part of the catechism he would be selling as minister had one useless senator not poured the proverbial sand in his garri.Of course, the growing cheating culture puts a big question mark on the integrity of graduates churned out of our tertiary institutions today and ultimately the quality of scholarship in Nigeria. From the philosophical angle, the spectre of “mercenary” at examination halls should also be seen as an atomization of the moral deficit that pervades the larger Nigerian society today. What else do you expect when we have as leaders today men and women who brazenly rigged elections to get to office. What do you expect in a society where even pastors are being accused of embezzling money sent by an American evangelist for a recent soul-winning crusade. God save Nigeria! Remembering Dave Enechukwu It’s hard to believe that four years have elapsed since ace sports journalist, Dave Enechukwu, left us. He breathed his last precisely on May 27, 2001 at an unripe age of 41. A talented writer, he brought flower to sports writing. A restless reporter, he had a mind of his own and constantly “fought” the establishment in the sports community. Taciturn, he didn’t keep too many friends.This perhaps explains why he was more or less abandoned in his last days when a chronic ailment began to gnaw at his heart, draining him of zest and vitality. He fought to the last. He, I recall, still reported for duty at THISDAY, his last work-place. We were colleagues then and shared the same office. I got to the office May 28 to hear Dave had died the previous night. The same guy you saw two days earlier!Until his last hour, Dave’s lone, brave struggle against ill-health was well known to a few friends. The message is as relevant today as it was four years ago: the necessity of a social mechanism to support committed journalists in the hour of distress. The majority of Nigerian journalists today are left to live on poor pay and, in some extreme cases, no salaries at all! Had such an infrastructure existed, perhaps Dave would have been better equipped to fight the ailment. The Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) turned 50 yesterday. Issues like this, I think, should bother us while marking this golden jubilee. Good enough, the present leadership of Prince Smart Adeyemi is presently mobilizing to institute a national insurance scheme for Nigerian journalists. If the dream sails through, then a fitting monument would have been erected in memory of brave media soldiers like Dave who truly lived for the calling.