My Experience With Jamb(joint Admission MANIPULATION Board); REMARK Our Exams. - Education

Joint Admission MANIPULATION board


I write this essay out of anger, frustration, helplessness, melancholy, hatred and every other malignant and unhealthy human emotion you can ever think of.

I graduated out of secondary school in flying colours in 2012(seven A's and two credits in WAEC without runs or expo), but due to lack of funds and sudden death in the family, I had to forfeit writing JAMB that year. I hustled, did a lot of menial jobs; from working in a car wash, teaching in a school to serving as a sales representative in a bookshop.

I did everything humanly possible throughout the whole of 2013 just to survive and make ends meet as my stepfather doesn't give a damn about my existence, and my mother's business was at rock bottom.

It's safe to say that when it was finally time for JAMB in 2013, I wasn't as prepared as required due to the stress and work which almost never gave me little to zero time to peruse through my books. The jobs I held coupled with a bundle of other unforeseen contingencies made me score 215 in my JAMB that year. I couldn't secure admission with that score and blamed myself thoroughly for not studying harder.

I promised I was going to do better in 2014, but unfortunately, it didn't work out the way I foresaw it. The jobs I held gave me absolutely no time to purr over my books. It was a repeat of the 2013 as I scored 230. I am not as connected as other people as I come from a very humble background, so i couldn't do runs or lobby as most people did.

The year 2015 was, however, very different from the previous years.
Seeing almost all of my mates in the university made me vow to study like there was no tomorrow. I tendered my resignation at the hotel I was working as a bar man since September 2015.
I did this because I wanted to focus on my exam.

* I studied 6 hours everyday, took 45 mins break then studied for another 4 or 5 hours, then slept.

* I bought all the textbooks required(Essential Government, CRS textbook, Lit-in-English and English Language textbooks), including the past questions for all of my subject combinations. I also downloaded the syllabus for JAMB 2015/2016 and used that as my compass whenever I studied.

*I even enrolled in a backyard tutorial at the beginning of January but had to stop going because their lecturing wasn't helpful. If anything, it was only a distraction, as most of the ladies/girls that had enrolled dressed too seductively and I have to admit, was making lose focus.

I continued my private reading. I even watched YouTube videos on some of the poems in the syllabus just to have a firm grip on them.

I also pasted cardboards on the walls of my room. These cardboards had the dates of the most difficult events in that government textbook. Every government student would know what I'm talking about. I did that and would recite the data I stored on the cardboards daily until I fully mastered them .
I had worked out my past questions back to back too, in fact, if you had asked me a question from them, I would have told you the answer before you even read out the options.


I walked into that exam hall 100% prepared.
My exams were scheduled for 6:30am and I had gotten to the exam centre by 5am already revising and meditating.

Behold, the great JAMB officials did not even start accreditation and thumb-printing exercise until 7:30 am, leaving we Jambites and parents and friends who accompanied us under the scorching heat of the sun.

We finally did the biometrics exercise at around 8:30am and were finally led into our various examination halls or classrooms as the case may be.

I sat down, prayed to my GOD, and could hardly wait to hear "You can now begin your exams" from the examiners.

Let me just make it clear that an examination hall is synonymous to a sanctuary.... it is to be accorded the same respect or almost the same respect as a church, a mosque, a shrine and other places of worship.
That means, absolute quietness should be the watchword in an exam hall. Unfortunately, most of the disturbances and distractions were coming from the so-called JAMB officials who were busy chattering like pigs about how the server was down, and also with the incessant clanking of their shoes against the marble floors.

One of them even received a phone call in the hall, and spoke nonchalantly. I also noticed one smiling whilst chatting on Whatsapp, instead of helping out with fixing the goddamn server.

With of all these distractions and noise, my mind was in a state of delirium and utter confusion .

1. I was trying so hard to ignore the things in my physical state, and concentrate on reflecting on the things I had read.

2. My heart was throbbing because of fear.....fear of the UNKNOWN

3. So many questions were formulating in my head.
What if the server doesn't come up? What if it does come up, but half way through it dies down again? What if what people said about them not receiving their exact result happens to me?