About a fortnight ago, it was widely reported that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) had turned down an apology from a former candidate who admitted committing an examination fraud in the past.
Blaming his misconduct on youthful exuberance, the ex-candidate, Mr Temipade Kemepade, was said to have expressly confessed to indulging in the act as to enable him pass the University Matriculation Examination (UME), now known as the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This disclosure was reportedly made in a bulletin published by JAMB and released to newsmen by its Director of Protocol and Public Relations, Dr Fabian Benjamin. Its exact phrasing is as follows:
“A repentant candidate named Mr Temipade Kemepade has written to the JAMB asking for forgiveness owing to his involvement in examination malpractice in the course of obtaining the result of the UME (as UTME was known then) that he sat 21 years ago. He blamed youthful exuberance for his misconduct.
“Mr Kemepade’s plea was contained in a letter addressed to JAMB titled; Restitution on my JAMB Result 21 Years Ago”.
In its response to the letter, the university entrance examination board said it would only accept the apology if it is for the now penitent ex-candidate to forfeit all the certificates he had acquired with the said UME result.
The board’s stand would surely not sit well with Kemepade and may keep his intended restitution hanging as he is not likely to readily surrender his post-JAMB educational credentials. He may have meant restitution in terms of the board merely revoking the tainted result and placing some monetary penalty on his confessed misconduct.
In fact, judging by the extent of moral decadence in our society, and the rarity of felons willing to come clean with an open confession of their secret misdeeds, the man may have expected popular commendation for his uncommon penitence. Obviously, his naivety was such that he never contemplated JAMB’s extreme reaction and that the consequences can even stretch to the loss of his present employment – that’s if he does not end up in jail.
Of course, a handover of the man’s later academic acquirements to JAMB will most likely trigger off similar revocations by organisations like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), if and where applicable.
Kemepade’s case further questions the claim, sometime last year, by the Minister of Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, that his exposed doctrinal teachings in the late 2000s had been driven by youthful exuberance. While the latter’s excuse may have served to earn him an apparent pardon by his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, it remains to be seen how a similar puerility claim resonates with the JAMB authorities.
This matter also brings to the fore what has since become rampant in those worship centres where cultists, money ritual men, armed robbers, rapists, kidnappers and several other criminals file out at the alters and confessionals every Sunday to renounce their membership or merely confess to a sinister undertaking in order to qualify for church-sponsored rehabilitation.
These repentant felons are, in some places, sponsored for priestly training, technical skill-acquisition, nursing, HSE safety course and other academic pursuits within and outside Nigeria. This is even while a good number of them are still on police wanted list. What’s more, their renunciations and confessions are often recorded and constantly televised with their former operational hideouts mentioned in such broadcasts. Yet our law enforcement people remain unguided by such revelations.
The question is: if these bad fellows would simply make such half-hearted confessions of very grievous crimes and get readily reabsorbed into respectable society, what becomes of the many lives they had wasted over time; including victims whose means of livelihood had been destroyed? While they complete their trainings and go on to enjoy a new lease of life, their surviving victims continue to bear the physical and psychological scars of previous assaults.
Again, it is not even as if the so-called penitents do much, if anything, to assist the police apprehend their unrepentant former comrades. For every crime read in the news, these ‘repented souls’ cannot claim not to know the leader of the gang operating in that underworld territory. Yet they keep mum. Where then is proof of their repentance if they cannot show working?
The seeming general acceptance of this type of humanitarian undertaking by some religious houses is that people see it as a cordial way of mopping up criminals from the streets and resettling them on a more permanent basis. The downside of this, however, is that it allows these evil ones to literally float away with the dividends of their previous crimes.
Alternatively, I think it will make better sense if, from the place of renunciation or confession of a crime (especially the heinous brand), the felon is taken to the nearest police station and assisted with a lawyer all through trial. In the event that he is pronounced guilty, then the process of rehabilitation can commence after completion of his correctional jail term. That way, the victim gets justice while total forgiveness and reconciliation can be pursued therefrom. Surely, justice has a healing effect.
On the issue at hand, I think JAMB has started well. Let’s hope they pull it through.

By: Ibelema Jumbo