BY: Manfred Ekpe, Esq
Human Right Activist and foreign trained lawyer though not yet called to the Nigerian Bar.
Speaking from Lagos having returned to the country yesterday 19 July 2023.
INTERVIEW WITH IGBERE TV
I condemn in very strong terms the institutional persecution of the 19 year old school girl, Mmesoma Ejikeme. Granted, the teenager has committed an error. And before her father and JAMB Authorities she apologized as confirmed by JAMB on or about July 2023.
Yet JAMB went ahead to feature her as a black citizen on a TV interview on 4th July 2023. As if that was not enough, the Governor of Anambra State H. E. Charles Soludo set up a panel which indicted Mmesoma and made public the report of her alleged forgery of JAMB score. The teenage girl had reportedly, with tears apologized to before the panel to JAMB, the nation, her school and family. But who knows whether the psychologically wear-out and traumatized schoolgirl admitted wrongdoing out of duress?
I had tried to call Governor Charles Soludo to complain about the way Mmesoma’s matter is being handled yet His Excellency wouldn’t pick his calls, which he used to readily pick when he was not governor. Is it because His Excellency now is too busy by reason of the onerous task on his shoulders as a governor?
As if the humiliation of the teenage girl is not enough, the House of Representatives again set up a panel to investigate her. The report of her admission to the offence and apology to JAMB and the nation has been released by the panel and is making hot news to the world.
To me, it appears to seem that the House of Representatives, JAMB and the Government of Anambra State are taking advantage of Miss Mmesoma’s shortfall to plead a righteous nation to the outside world. What a tragicomedy?
Is it the same JAMB that has been unable to, for years, hold the snake that swallowed JAMB money and all the documents evidencing such monies to account and to apologize to the nation, to her family and to JAMB itself? Why does JAMB become holy because the daughter of the weak and the voiceless is involved in an offence very minor in gravity compared to that of JAMB and its executive snake?
In this very country, a sitting governor whose eligibility to have contested the election that produced him as governor on grounds of forging academic certificates is being contested at the Election Tribunal. Upon being interviewed on TV a few about a fortnight ago, the governor said that he graduated with a BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION IN ACCOUNTING! ” I mean the whole world watched and heard this national embarrassment. Yet till date the House of Representatives have not summoned such governor to appear before it or its standing committee to explain how His Excellency bagged BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION IN ACCOUNTING. He is rather being given a red carpet treatment and gun salutes.
In this same country, a senator in his valedictory speech on the floor of the Senate sometime in or about June 2023, openly said on TV, and watched by the entire world, how he influenced his wife, a court of appeal judge, to give perverse judgments in favour of his colleagues at the Senate. Till date the House of Representatives have not done anything about such voluntary confession.
We can all remember the national embarrassment of “Honourable Minster, please off the mic,” which played out in the Senate a few years ago.
This was when the then Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, His Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio who was being punished and intimidated for transparency in handling the NDDC affairs, in which process he sought to expose Senators involved in fraudulent acts and corruption in the NDDC. As the then Honourable Minister began to open the can of warms before a Senate investigation panel, the chairman of the panel begged him to “off the mic.” Till date the House of Representatives has done nothing about such national embarrassment. Is it only the poor little girl’s wrongdoing amounts to a national embarrassment that we must be so amused to use her for a show of righteousness to the world?
It is therefore clear that Miss Mmesoma’s only sin is not the mistaken wrongful act that she may have committed, but her only sin is that she committed the act as the child of a poor helpless man. Had Mmesoma been the daughter of a governor, minister, or other big and strong in society, would all public institutions be in a competition spree to probe her conduct? Nigerians should answer this question.
It is very clear that in Nigeria fraud, forgery and stealing is not bad but the only thing that is bad is when it is done by the weak and the common people.
On this note, I hereby call on Nigeria and its institutions to please leave Mmesoma alone. She is simply the product of a society she was born into.
This is not to say that I am condoning or supporting Mmesoma for wrongdoing. My point is that she should not be singled out for punishment and tar brushing by national institutions while dirtier misconducts are being celebrated or covered up by the same institutions. Enough of the pretense. If Mmesoma has not one to talk for her, I hereby elect myself to do so.
Mmesoma has suffered sufficiently for the wrong she is alleged to have committed. She has broken down psychologically. It is reported that she attempted suicide. The way this teenager is being persecuted by her own country simply because she is not in the privileged class is capable of killing the human and humanity in her. She may have been advertised to the devil as a great tool. Our nation has to help redeem this young intelligent citizen.
Mmesoma should rather be helped by the State to reform by way of psychologically reordering her thought system away from what she was born to see, and by the showing of good example by political leaders and public servants who should show to the her and the other citizens including me, character probity, a good reputation, be a good example, and that they themselves are not forgers and frauds. A child learns more by an example. This holier than thou attitude of the rich and the powerful, and punishment of only the common people for the same act must stop forthwith.
Mmesoma must not perish because of her mistake. She had shown sufficient remorse and that she is capable of reformation. Her intelligence, rather than being allowed to be taken over by the devil for his will, should rather be harnessed by the conscious effort of the state and private organizations to make her useful to herself, her family, and an asset to the country.
Signed,
Manfred Ekpe Esq
20 July 2023. Lagos, Nigeria.
