How about legalizing examination malpractice?

If you are surprised at the oddity of this topic, then I can surmise that you are not familiar with the new trend of legalization making wave in the country. I see hope for ‘some’ students in Nigeria since, as reported by Daily Trust and many other media houses across the nation, our ‘dear’ Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has come up with a ‘reasonable’ solution to human trafficking in the country by asking the House to consider legalizing prostitution in the country and his standing was covertly seconded in some ways by the Senate President, David Mark, when he overtly stated that eradicating the ‘profession’ – prostitution, have become somewhat unfeasible, and that in Abuja, commercial sex workers have organised themselves into an organization and are well represented by legal practitioners. At least students can start lobbying for the motion to legalize examination malpractice.

In other words, if the motion to legalize prostitution could be moved, I believe concerned students will want to know why motions cannot be moved to legalize examination malpractice in the country. Since the only excuse given for this repugnant move by the Deputy Senate President was the fact eradicating prostitution has become unattainable. Students, lecturers and stakeholders will agree that wiping out the menace of examination malpractice in the country is somehow unachievable. Boards like JAMB, WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, e.t.c., though will not publicly consent with this notion; they know well that all their efforts to eradicate this malady have become futile. They have hence stopped talking about eradicating it, but reducing it.

For a second, I imagine the period when students in Nigerian tertiary institution will carry more than their normal Students’ Identity Card. Picture a time when students will carry another ID card that reads “Licensed to Cheat.” Envisage a period when students will be expelled not because they were involved in examination malpractice, but because they do not have licenses to practice it. Visualise a situation when students will be expelled not because examination malpractice is a crime, but because they were carrying expired licenses. Imagine a time when students will queue up in the newly formed Examination Malpractice ‘Licensing Bureau’ in the same proportion they queue up for Academic Registration. Students with penchant for engaging in examination malpractice are now not without hopes. Going by the Senate President and his Deputy’s stand on prostitution, it appears all students in the country have to do to get legal backing for examination malpractice is to take the social vice to the level of human trafficking to gain recognition from the likes of Deputy Senate President Ekweremadu.

If the words from the mouths of our noble Senate President and his Deputy are anything to go about, then there is a whole bunch of other legislations awaiting the House. At least, it is common knowledge that corruption in the high places had been legalized, even though unwritten, since 1999. Questions can thus be asked if the recent scourge of ex-governors’ arrest and trials by EFCC is due to the fact that they do not possess the so-called license to steal public funds or because some unseen hands had revoked their license?

It is only in our dear nation that thieves do not only have the prerogative to accuse other thieves, but they have undeniable rights to charge them for the same crime they also are guilty of. Anyone that can see beyond the facade can see that our politicians not only carry a placard of “Licensed to Lie” but also an ID card that reads “Licensed to Siphon Public Funds.”

A popular Yoruba adage says if we intend to scratch our body by the rate of the itches, we will scratch off our skin. If Ike Ekweremadu and his cohorts think any menace that appears unsolvable should be legalized, very soon, we will have national bodies like National Association of Armed Robbers, United Terrorists Front, Nigerian Association of Prostitutes, to mention but a few. And not only that, tertiary institutions should seek accreditation for departments like; Department of Prostitutions, Department of Armed & Robbery, Department of Terrorism, Department of Advance Corrupt Practices, and the likes; all of them presumably lumped under one faculty umbrella, say Faculty of Social Vices.

We all cannot remain blind to the fact that what is bad is bad. If people of political hierarchy like our ‘beloved’ senators cannot think of a better way to curb social ills than to legalize it, then where is the way forward for us? If we lose faith in those that suppose to make laws that’ll move us forward, where then are we going? We cannot run away from the truth just because it stares at us.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his famous “I have a dream” speech, “... in the process of gaining our rightful places, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.” We should always remember that whatever we seek out of life will be justified not in whether we ended up with it but in how we ended up with it. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for propriety by drinking from the cup of immorality.

Clement Adebayo Oloyede is a student of Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University, Kano. 08069196498, franklydammy@gmail.com