UMEH’S SOLUDO SCHOLARSHIP: NUANCES AND UNDERTONES

 Soludo cannot claim Nkechiyere and disown Mmesoma, argues Austin Isikhuemen

Miss Nkechinyere Umeh had the highest score of 360 (90% aggregate) in the 2023 University Tertiary Matriculation Exams (UTME) whose results were released recently. This was special and associated with a national uproar because another young girl had gone public claiming the prize with a score of 362! It is no longer news that the first girl, I hate to call her an impostor, has been shown to have doctored her result and moved the score from the genuine respectable 249 to 362 in order to beat the real winner.

The consequences have been grave. All previously announced awards to her, including scholarships, admission and cash, have been withdrawn. The corruption zero-tolerant Prof. Isaq Oloyede has since given the draconian verdict of a three-year ban to the errant youngster, and she is to re-write the exam with her current actual impressive score discarded! That is the definition of a sledge hammer.

The young cheat deserves punishment for her malfeasance, but I doubt if this pronouncement is commensurate with the offence, despicable as it is, her age considered. Compare this punishment with that of a former Governor seen on videos stuffing dollars of corruption proceeds into orifices of his sartorial infrastructure. He has been nominated for the position of minister as punishment! Optics. Morality. Do they still matter?

The latest news regarding the matter is the award of scholarship to Miss Nkechinyere Umeh by the Governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Soludo. The scholarship is tied to the State owned Nnamdi Azikiwe University at Awka. At this time of gubernatorial preening, it does not matter that this young girl, and the one that cheated who is equally bright, though from Anambra State, actually got prepared for the feats they performed by Ogun State. Yes, Deeper Life Schools are private schools, but the Ogun State Government provided the regulatory and infrastructural enablement that made this possible. Why is Anambra State claiming victory in a race it did not run?

It would have been just enough for the Anambra State government to award a scholarship because the kid’s parents are from that State. But read the Commissioner’s announcement of the scholarship award:

“Nkechinyere Umeh has been declared the best by the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), having scored a cumulative mark of 360 in the 2023 UTME. This is a testament that efforts by Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s administration to reposition the education sector is yielding the desired dividend.”

The claim in the second sentence is of the same class as the cheating that Mmesoma is accused and guilty of! It is false and condemnable. How can the Anambra State government claim credit for the results obtained by a child sponsored wholly by her own parents in a private school in Ogun State? Haba! Is it not this false claim that we are condemning Mmesoma for? I will hate to think that the Mmesoma incidence sprouted from Akwa government house or the government house is copying Mmesoma. Except if the Deeper Life Bible Church who owns the school is a subsidiary of Anambra State government. That is unthinkable. Who will ban this commissioner for three years? We are waiting.

The Ogun State government, in my humble view, has a better claim to crow about this performance. Deeper Life has already splashed the superlative performance of its students on pages of newspapers last week, justifiably so. I wonder why Ogun State government cannot make positive noises too about this achievement and award the girl an un-rejectable scholarship. This child is as much a child of Ogun as she is of Anambra State. The ethnic colouration being subtly painted does the future of our children no good. Here is an opportunity to demonstrate broadmindedness beyond ethnicity.

The ethnic jingoism that reared its ugly head in this Mmesoma debacle was totally uncalled for and condemnable. The ethnic divisions that sprouted and were nurtured at the highest level by the last government would take time to heal. From the ‘dot in a cycle’ pronouncement in Aso Rock to several laager mentality inducing appointments and neglect, some folks in the South East tend to recoil justifiably and want to ward off any perceived attack with the ‘nzogbu’ battle cry. We can do better to unite this country and stop ethnic baiting and recoil to ethnic laager as we saw during this JAMB wahala. Just imagine if the real first position had been taken by a Yoruba or a Hausa/Fulani child, rather than another Anambran that it turned out to be, and this Mmesoma had wanted to cheat her out of it? Heaven, possibly, would have fallen. It need not be so.

In my first article on this matter, I had blamed the impunity and larceny of the Nigerian elite for the state of our children today. No amount of verbal condemnation of the youth can achieve an ethical re-orientation than a positive change in the ways of the elders. You cannot cheat at election primaries, steal church and mosque collections, promote the least qualified, rig elections, steal pension funds, pay huge salaries to pampered children of the rich in loss-generating NNPC refineries out of production for 16 years, use bogus certificates for high office, build multi-story edifices and buy private jets with stolen subsidy funds and expect that the watching youth will not learn a thing or two from your crooked ways.

Lastly, there must be something Deeper Life Schools are doing excellently which is yielding these favourable outcomes. I had, a couple of years ago, written a glowing tribute to Lumen Kristi International High School, Uromi and its multiple award-winning Principal – Rev. Father (Dr.) Theophilus Itaman. Lumen Kristi has won the best-performing school in WAEC exams in Nigeria and West Africa on several occasions. There is a nexus between these two schools – high religious and moral tones. So is discipline, and committed teachers who are paid promptly and disciplined like the students themselves! Sadly Mmesoma’s Anglican School is also owned by a missionary organisation. Congratulations to Deeper Life Schools and Nkechi.

Our governments can also learn a thing or two from these high-performing private schools though, it must be said, that some private schools are not worth the land on which they are built. As for Professor Soludo, he cannot claim Nkechiyere and disown Mmesoma. They are assets and liabilities in the same balance sheet. That is why it sounds hollow to me when a legislator stands up and says ‘I represent the good people of Edo State’. Pray, who represents the bad and ugly ones? It is you!

Isikhuemen auxtynisi@yahoo.com