A Miracle Center is an exam center where even the dullest of students is guaranteed to pass with 'flying colours'! It's a very lucrative venture that enriches instantly. This attracts more people to invest in it on an alarming rate. The centers are established in all the main cities across the country. They register students who are desperate to pass WAEC, NECO, JAMB, and what not. Their patronizers are mostly the children of the elites, and those who have been sitting for the said exams over and over again without success. Among them are students who have attended JSS one to SS two at their respective private schools, but ironically lost confidence of making success at once at the schools. There are also students who lost confidence in public schools who also go for the Miracle Centers. Sir, a couple of years back when Bayero University Kano (BUK) offered admission for me to read LLB, and I couldn't make it in my WAEC, I contacted one of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of such Miracle Centers who was among the front runners in the business in the state. I was there for an inquiry. When I asked him what compensation would await their registered student who failed their exam. He replied to me out of disappointment that, they didn't think of failure in their center, as success is always guaranteed! He went further to tell me the number of courses to pass and the kind of grades desired are negotiable. The higher the number or grades the higher the charge. Despite my passionate long existing ambition to became a lawyer and to qualify as a Law student, I must present a WAEC with a minimum of six credits including Maths, English and Literature in English to the screening committee of BUK, I couldn't succumb to the Miracle Center boss. To validate the saying: 'A friend in need, is a friend indeed', my good friend offered to help and connect me with another Miracle Center boss at the host state of NECO: Niger, who demanded a huge pay for his service, because it seemed his center was even more miraculous than the earlier one. 'Pay today and get any result you want tomorrow!' will serve as the best motto for the boss. I sent the two third of the money. But on the very day, just few hours before the delivery of my miraculous result, I changed my mind and demanded that he refund me. He did so. I was astonished, but later learned that there must be the influence of the go between in the refunding. Had I didn't refuse to sing the song of corruption, I would have become a Lawyer by now or about to be, but with a forged result, courtesy of the Miracle Center. Imagine the kind of lawyer I would have been or about to be. The Niger based center is indeed more miraculous than miracle as they took all precautions to block all the gateways for tracing the forgery. The boss, to calm me down, reassured to me that they have being in the business for quite many years with no record of issues with the security agencies and the court.
Your excellency, these Miracle Centers promote different forms of corruption. For instance, they do not become content with the unbelievably high sum paid, but they keep extorting money from their customers from the day of registration up to the day of collection of result until they milk their customers dry! Some female candidates get waivers or free registration after they battered their body. Above all, Miracle Centers promote exam malpractice which is the mother of all corruptions, when looked critically. Candidates that can cheat, will, or to be mild, can cheat public treasury, because they claim the knowledge they don't legitimately possess. This is similar to how some government officials claim the money they steal from public treasury. Such culprits extend the malpractice to universities, and if not caught, graduate, claiming the knowledge they don't possess at all. At the end, they become teachers teaching little or nothing to students, or engineers/architects designing and building week structures that suffer premature collapse which swallows lives and wealth, or doctors that becomes dangerous to the life of the patients, etcetera.
Educationally, Miracle Centers diminishes the past glory of learning in the country, especially at secondary schools level: most students don't mind to concentrate on their studies, for there exist a Miracle Centers at their disposal. Some of them use their study time to watch football and argue about it, some take drugs, or chat or play games or watch movies or sit at hangouts gossiping and planing evils. Others use such time to disturb the public or go to clubs etcetera. Students get the impression that, knowledge shouldn't be learned but rather be bought. It is also part of the disadvantages of Miracle Centers that it earns disrespect to teachers and teaching thereby relegating education to the background. 'Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.' - Nelson Mandela'. If this quote along other points mentioned above are anything to go by, then it can be concluded that, Miracle Centers are no. 1 killer of education in Nigeria! These centers' bosses, who are at the same time the proprietors, as it's the norm in our society these days, are valued and respected in a way that some universities, emirate councils and NGOs in the country honour and crown them with honourary Doctorate degrees, chieftanicy titles and awards. What a misplaced honour! I think if only the corrupts are honoured in Nigeria, corruption is redefined as legal and moral. I think this suggests that the unsung heroes in our localities are not worthy of such honour because they are free from corrupt wealth to bribe and buy such honour. I think the case is not the same in America and in other developed countries that we always claim to emulate and therefore aspire to be like them. I think the society should desist from according respect to such corrupt people, for that is an encouragement to them: essentially, once honour is accorded not to whom it deserves, the society then begin to perish, for instance, the way, according to some people, Nigeria begins to perish now.
Your excellency, These centers, going by the way the parents regularly pay for the registration of their children and encourage them to cooperate to the centers, the illegality is reshaped to be legality or to be mildly, condonable crime. To accomplish a true success in your anti corruption crusade, Miracle Centers in Nigeria should cease to exist: your excellency, canceal and replace them with guidance and counseling centers all over the country to be manned by experienced teachers and lecturers. Let these centers be organizing series of enlightenment lectures to all secondary schools graduating students before WAEC/NECO and JAMB registration commence, with the intent of curbing the menace of exam malpractice. Let them also use conventional and social media to campaign against the menace. More so, religious and traditional leaders should be involved.
It's high time EFCC and ICPC turned their direction to 'Miracle Centers', for they are the number one killer of education in Nigeria because I believe, they are not above the law, especially in your administration that belong to everybody and belong to nobody!
Bello Sagir writes from Kano
08132518714/belsagimyahoo.com.
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(C) Bello Sagir 2017.
