Strong Parallels Between Peter Obi and Mmesoma
THE ALTERNATIVE
By Reno Omokri
Let’s call a spade a spade for once. The Mmesoma Ejikeme matter has exposed the high tolerance for criminality in Nigeria. Yes. Many people will gather here to insult me. They will be livid. But they will be hard-pressed to name one place other than Nigeria where there would have been such a coordinated and mainstream defence and support for an obvious criminal behaviour, by the state and the general public.
The fact that the girl, or more appropriately woman (she is 19, whereas she was sold to us as a minor) boldly took her results to the Anambra Ministry of Education says a lot.
It also shows the level to which Nigeria has sunk when we tried to gang up against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board. Another country may have seen the need to preserve the integrity of such a vital institution. But not us. It was a case of better for JAMB to be pulled down than for one fraud to be exposed.
Thank God for Dr Fabian Benjamin who fought like a wounded lion to successfully defend the honour of JAMB. But for him, the reputation of the institution would have been in tatters. And then, where would we have been?
Unlike the West African Examinations Council, which has a rival competing examination body as an alternative, in the form of the National Examinations Council, JAMB has no alternative. It is either JAMB or a Babel of institutions all speaking different languages as they try to come up with admissions criteria for their various institutions.
And we were willing to destroy this singularly vital institution so a woman, who was described as a girl, could get a N3 million scholarship and other personal goodies.
Just look at that. For personal and ethnic gain, we were prepared to take out a critical national institution. Ah, Nigeria we hail thee! Few nations have the capacity to undermine themselves the way we do.
Recently, I was a guest of the British and Ghanaian governments in Accra, where I upbraided the British government and British universities and colleges for asking Nigerians to take a Test of English as a Foreign Language examination, and the International English Language Testing System examination.
I can just imagine the various British officials who listened to me now laughing at me. Amongst themselves, they could be saying look at how they do not trust their own Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, and they want us to trust their certificates.
Those supporting Mmesoma Ejikeme do not know that we have foreign embassies in Nigeria reporting back to their home countries about domestic goings on.
Because of the N3 million scholarship money she wanted to gain, Mmesoma’s actions have given British, American, Canadian and Australian institutions the excuse they need to justify why they cannot trust results and certificates issued by Nigerian institutions.
And tomorrow, Mmesoma’s defenders would be fuming at having to pay hundreds of pounds and dollars to take TOEFL and IELTS examinations before they can be admitted into foreign institutions. Because of a lack of forward thinking, and inability to anticipate the consequences of actions, it would not occur to them that they drove the nail into their own coffins by their present support for what is obviously a fraudulent act.
And Nigerians did not even sit down to ask themselves very pertinent questions on this Mmesoma Ejikeme matter. The girl claims that right from her nursery school days, she has consistently taken the first position, all the way through primary and secondary schools.
If that is the case, then why did she take JAMB at the age of nineteen? It is rare, very rare, for a brilliant student who went to nursery school to be a JAMB candidate at that age.
In Nigeria, nursery schools are for under-fives. By age five, you are admitted into the public primary school system. You are expected to stay there for six years. And then at age eleven, you are admitted into the public secondary school system, and you are expected to spend another six years there.
That means that a brilliant student would be expected to take their WAEC and JAMB examinations at age sixteen or seventeen. But Mmesoma is nineteen. It does not seem to add up.
If you are reading this and you went to university in Nigeria, how old were you when you took your JAMB examination? Now, compare your age with that of Mmesoma, who has consistently been coming “first right from nursery school”. Does it add up?
As long as some people keep on playing the politics of emotion, they will never be in motion.
Why would the Anambra State Government even set up a high-powered committee, filled with Professors and PhDs, to investigate Mmesoma Ejikeme’s JAMB result? The result was obviously fake. The owner of the centre where she took the exam (Osita Chidoka), had revealed that it is questionable. The girl (more accurately, WOMAN) herself admitted as much during her Channels TV interview.
There was just no need to set up that committee.
JAMB did not cheat Anambra State. They acquitted themselves excellently in this regard. They came up with documentary proof to show any objective onlooker that this was a case of pure criminality, devoid of ethnic bias. Anambra State cheated itself by wasting human and material resources on a lie. Henceforth, they should not complain that their federal allocation is not enough. They obviously have money to waste! This is what happens when you make a criminal matter an ethnic issue.
Indigenes of Kaduna, Osun, Lagos and Oyo states were also accused of fraud by JAMB. Those ones went to hide and bury their heads in shame, because they know their ethnic groups and states have little tolerance for their criminality. But Mmesoma was bold because she knew she would get support.
Why not? She has already seen how the owners of structurally defective buildings at Alaba market got support purely based on their ethnicity, despite being warned since 2017. She saw how some Nigerians used their ethnicity to almost paralyse the evacuation efforts of Nigerians in Sudan. So, she had enough examples to make her confident that she could get away with it.
And she is right. To show the high tolerance for fraud by the Anambra State Government itself, their recommendations did not include the prosecution of Mmesoma Ejikeme for her fraudulent act. Instead of prosecution, they recommended that she undergo a psychological evaluation. Really?
If you tried what Mmesoma did in Lagos or the Southwest, you would be prosecuted, as the Lagos State Government did to Oni Ololade, a LASPOTECH student who was jailed by the court for fraud.
But in Anambra, you will get a psychological evaluation at the state’s expense. Wow!
What did Scripture say?
“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.”-Ecclesiastes 8:11.
This high tolerance for fraud and refusal by the state itself to punish it is why certain states in Nigeria have too many of their citizens in jail for drugs, romance scams, and fraudulent acts in a proportion that exceeds their ratio of the total Nigerian population.
The same Anambra State Government that did not constitute a high-powered panel of inquiry to find out who was behind the killing of US embassy staff in Anambra on May 16, 2023, or to fish out those who killed a pregnant Northern Muslim woman, Harira Jubril, and her four underaged daughters, Fatima 9 years, Khadija 7 years, Hadiza 5 years, and Zaituna 2 years, was effective enough to put together a powerful committee to protect their golden girl (or woman), Mmesoma!
Unfortunately, the rest of us are treated like criminals in foreign airports the minute we produce our green passports. It is us, the innocent victims, who need psychological evaluation, not criminals like Mmesoma, who give Nigeria such a bad reputation at home and abroad.
Let me ask those saying we should treat Mmesoma with kid gloves a question:
If her backers’ false accusation that a Yoruba Registrar General of JAMB was perpetrating an ethnic agenda against an Igbo minor of 16 had led to war, or an ethnic crisis, what would you have said?
Is this not how previous ethnic conflicts started and led to the destruction of billions in infrastructure and the needless deaths of numerous Nigerians?
People who say that we should just forgive and forget are more dangerous than the Mmesomas of this world. Because they always apologise and excuse criminals, those with criminal tendencies will always feel that there is still room for them to perpetrate crime.
Didn’t you see how the Oyo State Government dealt with the case of the skit maker called Trinity, AKA Maruf Abdullahi? That is how a responsible government handles issues that are capable of destroying the moral fabric of society. The next time, there will be no more Trinity stunts in Oyo. But I can bet that there will be more Mmesomas in Anambra.
A society that tolerates crime will be a society that accelerates slime!
Mmesoma reminds me so much of Peter Obi. The similarities are almost endless. But let me just reduce them to twelve.
12 Similarities Between Peter Obi and Mmesoma Ejikeme.
1. Obi voted in Anambra. Mmesoma wrote JAMB in Anambra.
2. Obi won Lagos. Mmesoma’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice of schools are in Lagos.
3. Obi insisted he won #NigerianElections2023. Mmesoma insisted she had the highest JAMB score.
4. Obi claimed to be a youth at 62. Mmesoma claimed to be a minor at 19.
5. Obi blamed INEC glitch. Mmesoma blamed JAMB hitch.
6. Obi did a broadcast vowing to reclaim his mandate. Mmesoma did a broadcast promising that her results were genuine.
7. Mmesoma’s daddy said she was always crying over JAMB. Obi cried ‘Yes, Daddy’ over the election.
8. Obi won 98% of Anambra’s votes. The majority of Anambra supported Mmesoma.
9. Obi went on TV to cry. Mmesoma cried on TV.
10. Obi’s followers insulted everybody. Mmesoma’s supporters attacked everyone.
11. Obi lied that his brewery employs 60% of Anambra people. Mmesoma lied that she was the best pupil in Anambra.
12. IPOBy Ezekwesili said the certificate of return given to Tinubu belongs to Obi. IPOBy Ezekwesili insinuated that the highest score belongs to Mmesoma.
Moral of the story: Those who play emotional politics will always end in frustration, while those who play strategic politics will always end in dominion.
