O biara be onye abiagbula ya, o lawa mkpumkpu afula ya n'azu. ~ Igbo proverb
Do your remember Expo '77, the novel by Chukwuemeka Ike back in secondary school? While the Bottled Leopard was the recommended text for my secondary education in the 1990s, I found Expo '97 the most exhilarating moment of my youth. Yes, it's the beginning of yet another season of the West Africa Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). And today, the subject is Igbo (and perhaps other Nigerian languages). Did you cheat in your own external examination? I discovered today that it's possible to have someone actually say in the open that he's standing in for somebody in their examination. My life is full of such melodrama - what happens when your own is the culprit? Are you a victim when somebody else chooses to cheat in an examination? How and why?
Why would somebody enjoy praise for cheating in an examination and another gets reprimanded? The difference is who you know? Welcome to Nigeria, the land of the connected. I took my school certificate examination in 1997, which was after I had attempted the WASCE private the previous year. Unfortunately, I didn't get all the papers that I desired in order to continue to be a science student. Imagine knowing that another student, here a very supported class prefect cheated in a subject like Physics in 1997, some twenty four years ago? Would it matter? I did see somebody bring out a piece of paper from her bosom, use it and returned it into her brassiere. What women could hide their breasts do not only include breast cancer. But she cheated and possibly triumphed that way. Did she cheat in the other important subjects like Chemistry, Biology and even Mathematics? Today, that Uzoma Izuchukwu and her teachers are happy at all their mischief, should we say that Nigeria is progressing or deteriorating in her academics? Am I miffed that I wasn't brought into the inner caucus to cheat and win? Not really. I'm miffed that cheating has become the order of the day in Nigeria and that that doesn't necessarily mean brilliant graduates for the nation.. And when you speak of checks and balances, you are adjudged 'righteous' or even hypocritical for daring to speak about or challenge the status quo. What happens when somebody cheats to win? Do you report him or her or let sleeping dogs lie? I had to do the latter in the last two decades and more. But the outcome has been more emboldened criminals even among the womenfolk..
Who hasn't cheated in an examination one way or another before? I have never brought in external material into an examination centre. I have never dared it, not even in post/graduate school. One incident at the NOUN centre in Umudike will certainly get a blog post soon. In fact, I was really angry and disappointed that we all got searched and harassed into the hall at Ovom Girls' High School, Aba that morning, yet somebody was able to cheat successfully. I know of people even in my own family who had examinations written for them in their absence. I suspect that some students at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State were getting education for other people who were sitting happy at home. So, what do we get? A country where the person with the job is without the education and the person with the education is inadvertently without the job. Everybody wins? Lol. I chose not to say anything about that cheat session all these years spanning decades. Was the truth not out there? Did anybody else summon courage to accost or even shame Uzoma? It was bad enough that she got the first position in our class C for being the class prefect most of our school years but cheating in WAEC was dishonest to all of us.Anyway.... Who decides who sins and who gets forgiven? The priest, the pastor, or the Imam? Hmm...so people get away with recrimination by cheating with the priest, the pastor and the Imam. Such is life. So, when god punishes us, he punishes all of us or forgives those who cheat with his own servants.
When I attempted my first senior school examination, a critical paper was cancelled. I've made efforts to clear that paper. Yet all my efforts have been rebuffed. A paper as Mathematics is considered compulsory. Yet people have to cheat to pass. Buildings fail because people have passed Mathematics and Physics only on paper. They haven't quite learnt mechanics but they've passed it. People are butchered to death by doctors who have sworn to the Hippocratic oath. Why? Because it's all business, the buying and selling of knowledge at Ariria Market or Ahia Ohuru. My point is that Nigerians don't take studies seriously. Yet an examination body like the West African Examination Council (WAEC) continues its fake assessment of knowledge through its external examinations.
Last year, I was 'lucky' to mark the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination for the first time. If you were a marker you would know why I used the work lucky. It was even easy getting in as a 'gate crasher' yet it was the indictment and possible burial of any civilization attached to this country. Are we a joke factory or a country? O di egwu o. This year, the scene hasn't even changed. The actors have even become bolder. While I have spoken of Uzoma and her ilk, who dominated our education and score board at Ovom Girls' High School, I wouldn't but wonder if my parents were bought on the sabotage. If I'm being sabotaged for not paying the boarding fee of N2000, which I didn't use, who has sabotaged anybody for bringing in cheat paper during her Physics or even Chemistry or Mathematics. Bottom power at work, you could say? At that young age? It was good to celebrate the girls who came out with flying colours but cheating to win isn't the only way to win. Would I still be interested in this life if I knew that Jumai Achilike whose father had worked with WAEC probably helped her cheat to earn 9 Alphas, the best result of that year 1997? No way!
Knowing that people cheated to win when everybody else wasn't allowed to cheat negates patriotism. Who was in on the plot? The teachers or the prefects? Or even the evil parents? From Expo '77 to Expo '97 or even Expo '2021; which way Nigeria? Cheating students, cheating lovers, cheating leaders, cheating citizens, cheating teachers. What a cheat and wicked nation.
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