Globusz^® Publishing 

Seventy-six students, with faces gleaming with anticipation, converged around the Chemistry Laboratory of Boys Secondary School. They were eagerly waiting to be ushered into the lab for the Chemistry practical examination, which would herald the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations. It was some days after the University Matriculation Examination (UME) which almost all of them had written. While they waited for the lab attendants to finish setting up the apparatus for the practical, the boys stood in two’s and three’s, some others in larger groups while they shared experiences which they had encountered during their UME.

Ifenna was among them, being a science student. He was leaning on the side wall of the laboratories building. Beside him stood his pal Fidelis, also a science student. All around them stood boys who knew about Fidelis’ past escapades and hoped he would feed their hungry ears with his own UME story. Fidelis needed no prompting, however, as he willingly mesmerized his colleagues with stories that were nearly as fantastic as they were absurd.

“...and I kept pretending that I was busy until one examiner came and stood beside me. He looked at me and I glared into his eyes. He asked where my answer sheet is. I didn’t talk but kept on looking sharply into his eyes, making it as evil and as intimidating as I could. Oh, you could have seen me then ...and my attire too.”

“Do you mean you actually gave out your answer? queried a smallish boy, still confounded at Fidelis’ daring spirit. The latter had earlier told them how he had sneaked out of the exam hall with his answer sheet to deliver to a ‘helper’ waiting outside.

“Oh you think I’m joking? Don’t shine your eyes until all your mates get admission into schools and you will be left behind.” There was a general laughter while most looked onto Fidelis in admiration.

“So Fideh, what did the examiner do? Did he send you out?” somebody asked.

“Send me out? No way. When we have looked at each other for sometime, he said, ‘you think I don’t know what you are doing?’ and I retorted ‘You should understand now’. He stared at me for some seconds and smiled a little. He then looked around him – maybe to check if any other invigilator was around – then turned back to me and said ‘see me’. I understood. My wallet was soon in my hands and I gave two-hundred naira note. He moved on. You see, it’s a game of understanding.”

Some of the boys cheered in support and even cheered more as Fidelis concluded his story with how he stole in his completely filled answer sheet and submitted it. Ifenna, not to be outdone, related his own escapade which equally elicited some applauding cheers especially when he came to how they evaded the police by jumping over the fences. He did not include, however, how he and Edwin were beaten in the bush where they ran into. They had come across five rough looking young men who were busy smoking hemp. The men had fallen upon the poor boys thinking that they have been sent on a spying mission. In the process, the men had emptied their pockets and cleared all the money in their possession, which included Edwin’s three thousand naira. They were lucky as, not longer after, other escapees from Town Land Girls Centre stampeded breathlessly towards their position. The smokers had run away, not knowing that the mob of youngsters heading towards them were too preoccupied with their own problems to even notice them. Edwin was thoroughly embittered at the loss of part of his payment and the beatings he had received. He had sworn never to do any ‘exam business’ again.

“...I continued writing until I have exhausted all that I read. The exam actually lasted for six hours and more. I wish all my exams would be like this years’ UME,” concluded Chukwuma, a very tall boy who had been living in the dormitory since his first year. His parents stay in the northern part of the country and he had to travel to the place for UME. His colleagues gaped at him in envy as he narrated his own experience. The sharper minds among them wondered why some centers would be allowed a whole day to write the examination while others were not even allowed up to the standard time.

“Are you saying that his invigilators left you to write for more than six hours? Just like that?” someone asked incredulously.

“Yes, just like that. We were not so many at the centre and there were no disturbances. I wouldn’t know, but I feel it might have been arranged by...”Chukwuma halted abruptly as everybody had started moving to the entrance of the Chemistry laboratory.

Mrs Ezeani, their senior Chemistry teacher emerged from within the lab and waved at them to be quiet. The external examiner had not arrived and she had summoned them to reveal some necessary facts that they would need during the practical. She gave them the end-point value to expect during the titration experiment. This piece of revelation made some of the students jump around in glee. With the end-point value on the minds, most candidates could forfeit the actual experiment and manipulate figures to design their table of values. Ifenna was particularly overjoyed sat this trend of events. ‘Who is the fool that would choose to work for a pay even when his employer promised him a payment for staying idle?’ He reasoned.

Soon the Practicals were over and they were writing the theory exams. The Practicals did not pose a major problem and truants like Ifenna, Fidelis and the rest. The main reason was that subject teachers from less scrupulous schools collaborated with their students so as to make things easier for them. Since the teachers were the ones to gather the specimens to be used for the Practical, they made use of experience in deciphering the nature of the questions that the examination body would ask. These, they supplied to their students who, in turn, made them available to their friends and relatives in prim schools. Subsequently, the practical exam itself becomes a walkover. Still, it was not as easy for Ifenna as he had to force himself to read the already solved practical problem. Not been used to reading, he did this half-heartedly and during the exam, his memory was as blank as a clean sheet of paper. He was very grateful to his long neck that facilitated his view of his neighbours’ work. He copied verbatim, in Practical Biology and Practical Agricultural Science. Practical Physics was a group affair due to insufficient laboratory tools.

At around seven o’clock on the day they were to sit for Physics theory, Ifenna and Fidelis emerged from the main gates of Boys Secondary School. They came out to the main road and boarded a bus heading eastwards to another end of Inland town. They were heading for George Memorial Secondary School, Fidelis’ former school.

“You’re sure they will have this?” asked Ifenna anxiously once they were inside the bus.

“...ah Ifenna, relax. I’m a big boy and I don’t indulge in kiddies play. I told you these guys are very good at this game.”

“O boy I really hope they are. Otherwise, this exam will mess us up.”

At Savoy bus stop, they paid the bus conductor and alighted. A short trek down a side street brought them to their destination. They went to the front of a shop opposite the school gate and stood waiting.

“Why are they not here yet?” Anxiety showed in Ifenna’s voice again.

“They will soon be here. I saw Onochie yesterday and he promised to obtain the material early enough. Let’s pray he has got it.” Fidelis explained

Some minutes later, a dark wiry teenager came off a motorcycle and walked briskly towards them. It was Onochie.

“Fidelis have you been waiting for long?” he asked.

“No. Are you with it?”

“Yes,” said Onochie digging his hands into a black polythene bag that he was carrying. “I went to Town Girls and some other schools before coming here that’s what kept me.”

He brought out some sheets of paper from the bag and handed them over to Fabian.

“Here...money?”

Ifenna brought out his wallet and money exchanged hands.

“Onochie, this is my pal, Ifenna.” Fabian said patting Ifenna on the back.

“Ok, nice to meet you Ifenna. I have to be running along now. I have other things to do before I come back here for my own exam. I should have asked you to wait at your school since I’m now very mobile,” he pointed to the waiting motorcycle and its rider standing nearby, “well...see you later.”

Soon the chattered bike was zooming off towards the main road.

“This is real business!” exclaimed Ifenna gazing at the departing figure of Onochie on the bike.

“Yes. He said he has connections at the necessary places. Take a look at the paper and let’s hurry back to our school. It is getting to 8 o’clock.”

Ifenna took the sheets as they started walking away. Everything was there—from the name of the examination Board to the date. Ifenna was carrying on his hands, the photocopy of the Physics SSCE paper!

They hurried back to school in a commercial motorcycle. At school, Ifenna and Fidelis did not look far to get boys who were able and willing to tackle the Physics questions. Though they tried very much to keep their activities clandestine, a small crowd of eager boys soon surrounded them. Everything, however, went smoothly for them and before 9 o’clock, Ifenna and his friends were loaded and waiting confidently for the exam to begin.

When the exam finally began, Ifenna surreptitiously transferred his ‘load’—several small pieces of paper from his underwear to the inside pages of his question paper. Some one hour before the end of the exam, Ifenna was through with his work. The boy sitting immediately after him, Dan, the same boy who helped him at the Practicals, requested for the pieces of paper. Ifenna willingly obliged. As his neighbour started copying, Ifenna stood up and went and submitted his answer sheet. Some others were submitting theirs too. The students knew, among themselves, that the first to give in the papers in any examination are the very brilliant candidates and the truants.

Dan soon joined the students outside. Ifenna called him, “Dan, have you finished already?” Dan shook his head. His face was as lugubrious as the winter sky. He stood with arms akimbo and head bowed as if observing with anger, his fat and short frame.

“What’s the matter, Dan?”

“Leave me, Ifenna. I’m dead. The External Examiner caught me with that stuff you gave me and signed on my answer sheet. You know what that means...” Dan was almost shedding tears. “I’m gone, I’m gone.” He kept muttering.

Ifenna did not know what to say. Many more boys were coming out of the hall now and the ones who observed Dan’s encounter with the examiner crowded around him. The unfortunate boy was besieged with questions by his mates. Others consoled him. He shoved everybody aside and went away, bemoaning his fate.

The eve of the Mathematics day saw lots of activities within and outside the school. While some of the boys were busy putting finishing touches to their preparation, others were running about town, seeking for one form of aid or the other. Naturally, Ifenna belonged to the later category. By the next day—early morning—Ifenna had got a copy of the day’s examination paper. This time around, the questions were already solved. Ifenna could not wait for the exam to get started.

The exam started at 10:00 am. Once he got his answer sheet, he proceeded copying in the solutions from ‘expo’ without even a glace at the question papers. It was going smoothly for him until he got to a place on the ‘expo’ where his writing became illegible and too tiny. A very close observation was out of question as that would arouse the examiners’ suspicion. He then decided to consult his question paper. For more than ten minutes, he could not locate the particular question he was answering. He was alarmed. Was it that he was so backward that he could not even locate where he was? he wondered. He checked his answer sheet and noted he was doing number 5, section b and that the question bordered on Longitude and Latitude. He quickly checked 5b in his question paper and saw that the question was about Inequalities. He went through other questions and compared them to his expo. He discovered to his chagrin that similar discrepancies existed in all.

Ifenna nearly screamed out. He had been wasting time copying fake solutions! He had also faithfully filled in all the fake answers during the objectives part, which they had submitted earlier on.

“You have about thirty minutes more!” announced the examiner. Waves of murmurs traveled round the hall.

Ifenna cancelled all he had written and turned towards his neighbour, Dan.

“Dan, Dan, please let me see the one you’re writing?”

Dan pretended not to hear. He sat like a stone, pretending not to hear. Since the Physics incidence, Dan had ruled out cheating as well as Ifenna and his likes, as long as the exam lasted. Ifenna turned to his left where Uche Ozara sat. The naive but inquisitive boy could hardly be classified as intelligent but Ifenna was past caring. He prodded Uche a little and the latter shifted to allow Ifenna an undisturbed assess to his work. With a terrific speed, Ifenna copied down all he could see from Uche’s work for the next twenty minutes. When their papers were collected at the end of the exam, Ifenna was still at a far cry from completion.

Ifenna, Fidelis and Damian stood outside their school gate. It was about one hour before their Biology examination was due to start.

“What could be keeping this guy?” asked Damian to no one in particular.

“You know he had to fight hard for this ‘stuff’ so let’s be patient.” Fidelis defended his friend. “Onochie do not disappoint people.”

“So Fideh, how do we explain what happened on the Maths day? Or was your own not fake?” querried Ifenna. Both Fidelis and Damian had had the same experience as Ifenna but unlike the latter, they found out early enough to save their necks or to attempt to do so.

“I’ve already told you the fault was from the people that solved it. That was what Onochie said. Did you not insist that we buy the solved one?”

Ifenna did not answer. They had gone through this argument before. It was no use pursuing it further.

Onochie arrived when they were making up their mind to go in. The transaction took less than a minute. The three boys rushed to the hostels and discovered that their mates have all moved to the exam hall. An SS2 boy told them that the external examiner was already in the hall. They ignored all and gathered their biology textbooks. With faces glistening with sweat and hands shaking, each copied the answers to the questions in pieces of paper. At the end of forty minutes, Ifenna folded his ‘expo’ and concealed it neatly in his sandals, which he strapped on firmly. Others copied his example, no time for some ingenuous hiding technique.

Then they all raced to the exam hall. Ifenna hardly heard the berating welcome of their Biology teacher as he ran straight to the examiner and collected his exam materials. This time, before proceeding, he scanned through the question paper. ‘Not again’, escaped his lips before he could control it. An invigilator came to his side.

“What is it?” asked the lady teacher.

“Nothing” replied Ifenna as sweats of frustration combined with that of physical exertion, soaking his clothing. ‘So we have been fooled again?’ he muttered as he remembered that he had spent more than half of the exam duration in the hostel solving fake questions. He did not bother to bring out his ‘load’ as he began to tackle the real biology questions. The usual peeping around did very little to ameliorate his plight. When he reluctantly submitted his paper at the end of the exam, Ifenna was down in spirits.