Exam Malpractice: Rescuing the Future 2

By Msonter Anzaa

“Teach him that a dollar earned is far more valued than five dollars found.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

When people cheat in exams and get grades they do not deserve, what effects does it have on the society? One, it makes rubbish of our values as a people. What do we value; self-deception? The irony with exam malpractice is that the beneficiary knows he is far less worthy than what he claims to be. In reality therefore, he is a fake individual; a ghost living outside of his real self, and carrying forth a different personality. It would be easy for the WAEC to simply get a pen and write ‘distinction’ against all our courses and stamp with their seal and give us as our results. Would it not be a nice thing if everyone you meet on the street had straight distinctions in his courses in school? Why do we not do it like that? Is it because we want the real truth? If that’s why, then it is also why we must not tolerate exam malpractice. When we close our eyes and let people get away with grades they do not deserve, that’s what we are doing. We are simply writing ‘distinction’ against their courses even though we know they are not worthy of them. We are simply deceiving ourselves.

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 Exam malpractice encourages other forms of malpractices. Is there any doubt that in Nigeria today, we lament the prevalence of electoral malpractice and corruption? We can point to our local government chairmen and state governors who didn’t actually win their elections. In fact, in the last national population census, it emerged that some individuals actually rigged the census! They simply looked left and right when no one was looking and assigned artificial population figures to their villages, local governments or even states. People who indulge in exam malpractice believe it is the best way to do anything. It will cost them nothing and yet they will get something. They transfer their malpractice skills to wherever they find themselves. Woe to the society that has them in positions of authority. It would be better for that society if a large millstone was tied round its neck and it was thrown into River Benue. In fact, the malpractice sense is responsible for incurable corruption and much of the trouble we have with the use or abuse of public power or office.

Exam malpractice also under-develops the society. We end up writing certificates for people who have no use to themselves or the society. Instead, they become a burden on the society. We must get a way of paying them even though they are not employable. We must continue to suffer the consequences of mismanagement because they have infiltrated management positions and contaminated them with the virus of inefficiency. We produce engineers, doctors, architects and many other professionals, yet, we must run to China to hire construction companies. We must go to Germany to have surgery. When we try to engage them, they construct for us buildings that collapse even before full construction! Some of these happenings are consequences of exam malpractice, or broadly put, decayed educational and moral values.

As if the above consequences are not enough, exam malpractice destroys our reputation and makes it difficult for the few honest ones to be appreciated. International organizations soon learn that if a certificate comes from Nigeria, it is not important what grade it carries; it is useless. Then you struggle under the light of a kerosene lamp to get an honest grade. You go out there; someone gives just one look at the certificate and dismisses you with a wave of the hand. He knows Nigeria too well to be fooled.

To be continued

 Read also Exam Malpractice: Rescuing the Future 1

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              What Manner of Education? 3

Opposition Parties Merger: How Likely Before 2015?

 By Msonter Anzaa 
       

 The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had vowed or threatened to rule Nigeria for at least 60 consecutive years before it can hand over to any other political party. Given its performance since 1999, this ambition has serious implications for the future of Nigeria. Single political parties have attempted but always failed to dislodge the PDP from power. The only way out of this desperate situation is the formation of a merger or at least a formidable alliance among the leading opposition parties in the country. But given the character of the Nigerian politician, can such a merger work?

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 Quite clearly, Nigerian political parties do not have a remarkable history of mergers or alliances. A most recent demonstration of this problem occurred during the 2011 presidential election when attempts for an alliance between the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, failed. The usefulness of a merger is self-evident in a nation under siege like Nigeria. Mergers or alliances strengthen political parties and increase their support base. This is evident in the 2006 merger of the Action Congress and the Alliance for Democracy to form the Action Congress of Nigeria. The ACN has since then steadily risen to become a major opposition party in the country. To defeat the PDP, a merger of the leading opposition parties is necessary. This will not come without its challenges though.

 The biggest challenge to a merger of the opposition parties is the parties themselves. Opposition parties in Nigeria do not have a common idea of what they want to achieve. Each party appears to have been formed to pursue an agenda contra-lateral to that of the others. This is so because where these parties are not platforms for certain principal “owners” to express their political ambitions and become “stakeholders” in “cutting” the “national cake” without baking it, they are regional parties formed to advance sectional interests against those of the other regions. This causes opposition within the opposition and makes no room for a common ground among the parties. Take the failed ACN-CPC alliance for instance. General Muhammadu Buhari was torn between his personal ambition to acquire the title of president, his desperation to present himself as a  Northern candidate in his campaign and the ACN’s need for a more liberal and national figure. It was impossible for Buhari to give up his hold on the presidential ticket because that was essentially why he formed “his own” party, and the sentiment at that time was that it was the “turn” of the North to produce the president. If the alliance had succeeded, it would have upset PDP’s victory given the CPC’s impressive performance of winning 12 states.

 A similar trend will likely play out between the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, and any of the other opposition parties. To begin with, APGA is an emerging power in the South East and is majorly regarded as an “Igbo” party which should provide a platform for an “Igbo” president. This sentiment is particularly strong because since the Civil War ended, no one from that region has become president. Typical of Nigerian political mentality, the South East feels “marginalized” and is agitating for its “turn” to produce the president. It will be difficult for the region to accept a merger which does not immediately gratify this desire. Indeed, it would be seen by the region as unfair for any of the other regions to insist on producing the president when they have done so at least once in the past. On the other hand, the Labour Party, LP, which does not seem to have any immediate presidential ambition, may not pose a great challenge, but due to its limited reach, its merger with any of the others alone will not present a significant challenge to the PDP.

 It follows from above that the merger of these parties will be difficult not because of any difference in ideology. Instead, it will be because of the non-existence of any ideology in the first place. This is where the opposition parties are no different from the PDP. It is a fundamental problem arising from wrong motives for political participation which are fuelled by irredeemable corruption. What is the essence of political power? Why is it difficult to have a national party that promotes the ideal of a strong and united Nigeria? Why do individuals hungry for power find it expedient to constantly harass the nation with threats of disintegration? It is because the Nigerian politician is a creature of emotions and not ideas.

 The people of Nigeria may have to suffer a little longer under the PDP and its genetic corruption because of this behavior of opposition politicians. A merger is only feasible where parties with similar ideas work together to achieve common goals. It cannot work where one man is occupied with a primordial desire to be president at all costs and another feels his “people” own the presidency and it is his duty to acquire it on their behalf. For instance, shortly before the 2011 presidential election, Orji Uzor Kalu was quoted as saying that he was running for president because an Igbo man does not yet have his picture in Aso Rock. General Buhari on the other hand was poisoned by the sentiment that the presidency belonged to the north, and he and his followers then defined a free and fair election as an election in which Buhari wins! The trouble with Nigerian politics is the inability of the politicians to rise above selfish interests and become sensitive to national interests. Why must a particular individual be president? Can’t these gentlemen sacrifice their personal ambitions for the sake of this nation? Why do we proceed with this chieftaincy-title-president ideology where the presidency is reduced to a title which everyone must bear? Why, as Chinua Achebe queries, do “a couple of [individuals]. . . see the Nigerian presidency as pension and gratuity for the services they think they rendered to the country thirty years ago”?

 Before any merger or alliance can work among the opposition parties, they would have to break with their ethnic and selfish sentiments, and project a national vision which every Nigerian can share. The “owners” of these parties must understand that the primary mandate of any political party is to serve Nigeria above everything else. They must liberate themselves from their incurable affinity for titles and positions. Not everybody must be party chairman; not every strong party member must be in political office, and not every financier of the party must be president. Instead, these parties should form for themselves a national vision and find from amongst themselves a Nigerian, irrespective of what language he speaks and where he worships, who has a full grasp of what needs to be done. Until they do that, any merger – if it happens at all – will only last as long as it takes them to realize that there was actually no merger in the first place.

Exam Malpractice: Rescuing the Future 1

By Msonter Anzaa

“The worst day of a man’s life is the day he sits down and plans how he can get something for nothing.” Thomas Jefferson

Exam malpractice is a common phenomenon in Nigeria. Wherever exams are held, the probability that there is exam malpractice in that place is 1. It will certainly be there. We have all witnessed it. We all know someone who has indulged in it. Some of us have engaged in it for ourselves or our friends. Some of us are exam malpractice contractors – we are contracted to facilitate it on our clients’ behalf. Of course we all admit it is morally and socially wrong, so why do we still engage in it? This series looks at causes of exam malpractice, its effects and how we can reduce it and instill credibility in our exams.

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Who are those who engage in exam malpractice? They are parents, teachers, students and all who have a role to play in the education of our society. One major cause of exam malpractice is the one mentioned by Thomas Jefferson above – the desire to get something for nothing. A lot of things are responsible for this desire. It could be laziness. Some of us are too lazy to do any serious work. We do not have the discipline to sit down and study. We love to gallivant from place to place; one birthday party to another. We want cheap fame, so we are all over the campus, doing whatever we can to get it. We want to pass exams for nothing. It could also be greed. We don’t want to commit anything to our studies. We just want to pass. We’ll look for shortcuts and pass our exams quick, quick, just like that. We think we are smart people. We won’t have to do all the reading and writing; we’d simply take something into the hall and copy onto the answer booklet. We will pass for nothing.

Another cause of exam malpractice is poor upbringing. Some of us come from homes whose moral fabric is rotten. We have no sense of honesty, hard work, commitment or uprightness. It is our nature to misbehave, so when we do something wrong, we are only being natural. No one in our family thinks it is wrong to cheat in exams. We are simply being smart, and our parents are proud to have us. After all, are we not only being like them? Some of them in government change figures, burn some records, throw others in River Benue in order to steal something from public treasury entrusted in their care. When they have “made it,” they hold huge thanksgiving services appreciating heaven for helping those who “help themselves.” They even pay malpractice contractors on our behalf. They put us in miracle centers where SSCE is take-and-chop, and school fees are charged based on how many distinctions one wants to have in the exam.

One other factor encouraging exam malpractice is inability to enforce anti-malpractice laws. Many brilliant laws have been made against exam malpractice. One law recommended 21 years imprisonment upon conviction. The Independent Corrupt Practices Act 2000 recommends 7 years imprisonment. Yet as I write this, no one I know has gone to jail or paid a fine for being convicted of exam malpractice. So the message has been sent that you can actually go away with malpractice. As a result, exam invigilators now go to their stations with high financial expectations. They would task the students a certain amount each and would then allow them conduct themselves whichever way they want. Everyone gains. The invigilator gets some extra money to spray at the evening drinking party. The students get good grades for nothing. The invigilator will not go to jail, even if he is caught. However, he wouldn’t even be caught. If he were caught at all, he would simply share the malpractice sum with the law agent and the deal would be settled. Corruption; everyone is guilty of it. The students would not be caught as long as they play their role. And the malpractice cycle flourishes. 

Perhaps the greatest factor in favour of exam malpractice is the acceptability is has in our society. It is a normal thing. Our students are expected to indulge in it to pass their exams in flying colours. We want them to make quick progress in their academics, graduate, get jobs and make money. In fact, we are at a point in Nigeria’s history where not to indulge in malpractice is an abnormal thing. Helping others to pass their exams the malpractice way is a compulsory patriotic duty. It’s an act of community service! That’s how far we have come, and this attitude nourishes the virus called exam malpractice.

To be continued

 Read also Exam Malpractice: Rescuing the Future 2

                What Manner of Education? 1

               What Manner of Education? 2

              What Manner of Education? 3