by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi

“For any exam solution!! Always visit www.naijaclass.com.ng. Physics = #400 MTN Card, Commerce = #400 MTN Card, Animal Husbandry = #400 MTN Card, Agric Science = #400 MTN Card. Send your subject, MTN Recharge Card to XXXXXXXXX and you will get your pin as sms immediately we confirm your card.” That is the message that welcomes you to the website of www.naijaclass.com.ng. For examcrown.com, her tagline as boldly written on their homepage is “BEST EXAM WEBSITE FOR JAMB RUNZ,WAEC RUNZ,NECO RUNZ ,NABTEB RUNZ AND NEWS UPDATES”.

What effrontery! It is like a dog who visits the den of lions and with pride, condescendingly proclaims, “What is it you guys do here? I am here to steal your game. Hand them all to me.” Or a hacker who visits the head office of EFCC to scream on top of his voice that he has hacked their account and has stolen all their allocation and then begins to beam at a mirror, brushing his hair. I never thought Nigeria, and the apathy that we have for her, has become so appalling.

Just a few hours ago, I stumbled on a broadcast message in one group on social media addressed to School “Principals and Stakeholders in Education”. The message revealed the shameful practice of some miscreants who run the above websites, including examsort.com with the tagline “YOUR #NO 1BEST RELIABLE EXAM RUNS WEBSITE…”. I thought it was untrue and almost waved it aside until I paid a visit to all the sites mentioned in the broadcast message. While these websites as stated above are, as at the time of writing, still operational, such sites as www.gurus.com and www.exponet.com seem not to be.

It is with a heavy heart that I pen these words because a few days ago, I had confronted some medical doctors who are my relatively, precisely in-laws, who are leaving the shores of Nigeria for greener pastures with the charge of contributing to the brain drain. Alas, it appears I am the ignorant one, hoping, I bet, foolishly, that the factors contributing to the continued retrogression of the country had long been removed and the retrogression stopped, at least, paused. With the knowledge of such practice as this, then I am proud to say I was wrong.

This is a sacrilege! And to think that what constituted the worry of most Nigerians hitherto had been the state of the country’s educational system “head to toe”, this is a massacre. What it means to have many students providing testimonies to the people behind such websites about how wonderful they have been to allow them pass with distinctions in all their courses, claiming that such miscreants are “the best” is just a pointer to one of the problems of the country, or more correctly, a time-bomb waiting to explode. However, it is not entirely different from the rest of the country, where adults, family men and women, some with potbellies or wrinkles and grey, pose as sycophants, begging and dancing like idiots (ha!) before their ‘ogas at the top’ who must have stolen public funds, for crumbs – “anything for the boys?”. It is a culture that should be put away with alacrity if the country must survive; enough of personally praising corruption and yet wondering why the country is not progressing.

Nigeria is a country that, without being conscious of it, supports the idea that the ‘end justifies the means’. NO! The means need to always be scrutinized and we make sure that the right means are enthroned as opposed to “any-which-way”.

Many of such persons who have obtained distinctions in all their WAEC and NECO disciplines and ‘over the cliff’ scores in JAMB, few marks shy of absolute, have most likely gained admission into Universities, if they have not yet graduated, while those students who probably studied hard, ignorant or disinterested in patronizing the ‘get-the-scores-fast-and-simple’ websites are still waiting at home, hoping to apply or write another exam. Unfortunately for them, even their moral leaders may be looking at them ‘with one kain eye’ like “are you a fool?” kind of eye. Truth be told. This is fast becoming the norm. Everyone is competing for the reward, the end of the process and no one is bothering to look at the means.

The most worrisome is that those students armed with #400 Recharge Cards, having become veterans in buying their ways, would not relent in Universities in ensuring that they equally obtain better grades than their ‘ignorant’ counterparts. As it is impossible to offer what you do not have, there is bound to be an increase in the number of beneficiaries and benefactors of “sex for marks” liaisons. When such #400 naira Recharge Card a course students enroll in medical school and finishes “any-which-way”, what do we expect from the medical doctors that they become? Same can be said of other professions, be it engineering, law, pharmacy or what have you.

It is bad enough that such websites exist as we speak. Every second that they continue to be alive is an investment towards the purchase of a coffin for education in our country. Education, especially of the young people of a nation, is critical, a sine qua non, for the development and health of that nation.

This is a call to the authorities directly responsible to see to it that the websites of the miscreants are brought down with immediate effect while the perpetrators are fished out and prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to those in their budding stage.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi writes from Brazil where he is currently undergoing a PhD. He can be reached at [email protected]