Posted by By JULIANA FRANCIS on
Twenty-one year imprisonment is staring four students who were caught cheating in the just concluded Universities Matriculations Examinations (UME), in the face.
Twenty-one year imprisonment is staring four students who were caught cheating in the just concluded Universities Matriculations Examinations (UME), in the face.
The four students, comprising three girls and a boy, were held on May 5, 2007, at the Igbobi College and Maroko Comprehensive High School, both in Yaba, Lagos. Their plans to cheat in the examination were allegedly discovered when different text messages entered their handsets, detailing answers to different subjects.
The students were identified as Grace Aremu, 17, Abiodun Wajia, 20, Monsura Badeyi, 21, and Tajudeen Adeniyi, 23.
The stories of the suspects who spoke to Daily Sun didn't just fall into place, as the puzzles refused to add, making their stories hard to believe. Aremu denied ever engaging in examination malpractice. According to her, every member of their family is academically brilliant and it was beyond their imagination that she should be involved in a disgraceful act as cheating. She insisted that police investigation would prove her innocence.
She boasted: 'My mother couldn't believe it. She knows we are brilliant in our family. I can't imagine myself cheating for mere objective questions."
Narrating her version of what happened that fateful Saturday, Aremu insisted that the phone found on her desk belonged to another girl, Kike. She added that she was writing the UME hoping to study law. According to her, the message sent to the phone included Mathematics arguing that it was not among the subjects she listed.
She recalled that on that afternoon she was having stomach upset and was stooling. She told Daily Sun that she had gone to the toilet to answer the call of nature and rushed back to the hall when she noticed that the toilet was filthy and that the JAMB registrar was around.
She said: 'Getting to my table, I saw a phone. I alerted the invigilator. The invigilator said get up! Get up! I told her that it was not my phone. She said I should come and pick my phone. It was the same model with mine. The person said he would send Maths. I don't do Maths. I'm going for Law. I don't know why he said he would send Maths.
She added that someone had earlier called her to say he placed two phones in her bag without her being aware. Aremu said: 'If someone can keep two phones in my bag, they can as well keep it on my table." She said the real owner of the phone was Kike. She explained that during the altercation with the examiner, Kike had come to say the phone was hers but when the message came in, she disappeared."
Adeniji told Daily Sun that he believed he was being punished by God for not praying on that fateful morning before leaving home. 'I assume I prayed that day, this would not have happened," he said.
While stating that it was never his intention to cheat in the exams, Adeniyi added the message that came into his phone stating answers to different subject could have been done by a mysterious stranger he met in the Igbobi College premises after he left the exam hall to answer the call of nature.
According to him, he had taken permission from the invigilator to go to the lavatory and was asking direction when he ran into the stranger. He said: 'I saw a man, he asked me what I was looking for. I said toilet, he led me to the toilet. As I was about to enter, he asked me if I had finished my exams, I said no, he asked me my name. He asked me the number of my cellphone.
I told him. He wrote the information down. The phone was in my pocket. We were ordered to switch off. When I got to the hall, I switched off. The woman collected it and switched it on. A message came in, she gave the phone to a man."
Adeniyi, who was hoping to study Economics (Education), said he never wanted to take the exams in the first place but was persuaded by his parents.
Wajia's story was not any different from others. She accepted that her phone rang, but denied the caller being somebody with the intention to give answers. According to her, the caller was her 'toaster." She explained to Daily Sun that her 'toaster" didn't even know that she was writing an examination.
Wajia's story was full of loopholes. She said: 'We were instructed to submit our phones, when the external examiners came, they stood outside the hall. A lady entered the hall, she wrote down names. She gave it to one of the examiners. He asked everyone to stand up. He asked who brought phone to the exam hall, he asked if we didn't know the rules. We said we are sorry.
'My phone started ringing. The man said come and pick your phone. I said no. The woman winked at me not to pick it. The man picked it and said hello, then I took it. It was just my toaster. The man now held the phone, then a message came."
Wajia said she didn't know who sent the incriminating text message. She denied being involved in anything that was against the law.
'I don't know about any message. If I had wanted to cheat, I wouldn't have given my phone to the invigilator. After all other students had their phones in their pockets.
Badeyi said one of the girls writing the exams with her had asked her to collect her phone from the invigilator, which she did. She added: 'I was in the hall when a girl asked me where my phone was? I said it was with the invigilator. She asked me to go and collect it.
I collected it from the woman and gave it to him. He said there's a message in it. He asked me who sent it, I said I don't know."
The authencity of the students' story would finally be adjudged by the magistrate court. Daily Sun gathered that if they are found guilty, 21-year-imprisnment would likely be their punishment.