Mmesoma; Why JAMB is not justified

We have just completed the most virulent sham trial of a citizen by media. A long and tendentious jury trial by fellow citizens of a 19-year-old school leaver who could have been a victim of established scam as she now confesses to be of her own scheming. If we had devoted such unprecedented vitriol to naming and shaming the scam artists presiding over our republic it would have been paradise on earth. What more, the Japa syndrome would have metamorphosed into what my sister, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju projected to become Japada republic – the land of sweet returns. 

Finally the sanctimonious jury has retired back to the embassies and consuls where they make frivolous excuses to obtain travel visas. So is the unending quest by the parents of the jurors to reduce their age by affidavit so as to remain in service beyond their retirement dates. 

Nigerians must be glad that entry clearance officers do not have the luxury of trial by media. A lot of the online jurors would have deleted their social media handles and disappeared into oblivion even as those who crooked their entry to the abroad would have been deported. The unofficial jury trial of Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme on social media is like the sorry state where chicken thieves deliver the death sentence on cattle rustlers. 

Here is a 19-year-old accused of forging the results of her Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, examination dominating headlines for days while the looting continues in high places. Even now that she has been shamed into ‘confessing’ her alleged crimes, these sanctimonious jurors are still at work. One of them compared her ‘crimes’ with the jeremiad of a certain politician from her neck of the woods. When we play holier-than-the pope, our ethno-political bias shines through like a mirror in the sun. It is impossible to hide behind one finger.

It is distasteful to see JAMB, an agency of government throw caution, decency and decorum to the winds in an attempt to redeem a waning image. In a decent society, JAMB might announce the results of the highest scorer, but it would need the consent of the institution, parents and the pupils (if they are not minors) to announce other details. This would have been done to preserve the sanctity of its mandate and in deterrence to the rights of privacy that shield the identities of people involved in contracts except where such rights are vacated by law, in the national interest or by order of a competent court. 

In the Mmesoma case, JAMB, like the Nigeria Police, presented itself as the accuser, prosecutor and judge in its own cause. This case upturns a 470-year-old legal maxim – nemo judet in causa sua. It is a provision credited to Sir Edwin Coke in the celebrated case of Arnett vs. Kennedy where it was stated that no man should be a judge in his own cause.

JAMB rushed to the Directorate of State Services (DSS) asking it to investigate the case because it knows it has no prosecutorial powers. The DSS invited the parties concerned and was yet to conclude its investigations when JAMB resorted to trial by media. It jumped from press statements to granting TV interviews until it finally badgered the ‘culprit’ into a contrived ‘confession’. 

If JAMB had turned half the searchlight it turned on this 19-year old on itself, Nigeria would not have spent so much resources into prosecuting one of its ex-registrars. If it had cared so much about its institutional integrity, the so-called miracle centres guaranteeing success in its exams would not be assailing our senses with their advertisements on the airwaves. 

The principle in law is that those who come to equity must come with clean hands. I bet that if a forensic audit were ordered into JAMB’s affairs before, during and since its most sanctimonious registrars moved on, a lot of those standing as juror members would cover their ugly faces in eternal shame.

Here is the crux of the matter, until our nation stops worshipping politicians with questionable credentials, until the success and survival of public institutions are preserved, the younger generation would always strive to make it by all means. Our tainted image cannot be whitewashed by vilifying 19-year-olds taking lessons in debauchery from those who lead her country. 

If JAMB conducted credible exams that guaranteed admission spots to students into the schools of their choice, there would always be those wanting to snow the system to bypass its moneymaking venture. It would have created the leeway to come down hard on fraudsters and riggers of its results. For now, JAMB is more interested in how much money it makes for the government than the service it renders to its clients. 

The rest of the world has moved on from having centralised admission systems to granting autonomy to institutions to seek the best candidates from any corner of the globe likely to help it maintain its lofty heights. Educational institutions have even advanced to the level of converting work experience to academic credits for the purposes of admission. The purpose of the 6-3-3-4 system is to help pupils gain credit scores for their future academic pursuit without sitting for a money grabbing examination that is valid for a year even if the students passed and could not find placements.

JAMB and those in charge of Nigeria’s education system should grow organically, embracing global best practices instead of contenting themselves with scamming parents and younger generation with their best-before-date money centralized examination. It should plug the gargoyles of corruption and embrace dynamism and efficiency. It should challenge the system that computerises tests for kids that have only seen computers in textbooks. When it does these things, it would have zero need for trial by media to redeem a waning image.

If indeed Mmesoma willingly succumbed to fraud to maintain her smart student status, she must have learnt a lot of lessons from this. She should resign to the reflection chambers for introspection, apologise to her parents whose integrity she has impugned and commit to the paths of hard work and uprightness henceforth. Our society must refrain from taking the sides of agencies using dehumanising means for image laundering. 

The Katsina State Command of the Nigeria Police force is embroiled in a similar trial by media of Rukaiya Aliyu Jibiya who called it out for parading the young women it arrested as prostitutes. The police PRO and his team allegedly assaulted her before parading her before the Emir of Katsina, then detaining her and later taking her to an Alkali court where the judge was not sitting. The traumatised girl escaped and released another video from her hideout. This is a common occurrence in parts of the country not fully under media gaze. It should stop.

A national police should not lend itself to the whimsicalities of monarchs or religious zealots. Our constitution guarantees freedoms that are not subsumed to the whimsies of uncodified moralists. Those who desire to be ruled under such influences are free to seek residence or citizenship in theocratic pseudo-states that subsume human rights to the impulsive interpretation of religious extremists.