Those who don’t have children writing the university entrance exams this year don’t know what you are enjoying. I envy you all. It’s nearly five years that I had dealings with JAMB last, I didn’t know it’s now torture, extreme torture.
And if you have the bad fortune of your child’s school refusing to get involved like my son’s, welcome to hell. The journey to mental torture via JAMB started for me Thursday last week when I picked my son from his school. I envisaged a smooth journey culminating in the return trip scheduled for Tuesday, 4 February. It was not to be as JAMB ensured that it never happened. Its numerous roadblocks made sure the pain was promax.
We decided to commence the registration process on Friday, 31 January. From morning till afternoon we couldn’t generate the required code via 556019 or 66019. All the telephone numbers in our house couldn’t, yet 50 naira was deducted anytime we sent the sms. Airtel was so bad that it not only deducted the 50 naira, it also charged the four naira regular sms charges. Our parents’ WhatsApp group was already on fire with parents regularly updating their lamentations. Later JAMB announced that registration has been suspended till Monday, 3 February.
A friend told me today that his daughter will register tomorrow, I implored him to pack food for her. It’s a war out there registering for UTME. I’m glad this is my last child.
By the time I checked my phone on Monday morning, some had got round the code-generation obstacle. They did theirs in the middle of the night while normal people were sleeping. I blamed myself for oversleeping and we commenced the battle of generating code again. Still no success till 4pm. Fortunately I worked from home that day but by then my son was a wreck. Looking forlorn and distraught, I avoided him like a plague. Some parents have generated the code then, and our group was already polarised. We were supposed to return the children to school the next day, I needed no seer to know that was mission impossible.
I shifted to emergency mode. Typically, my youngest sister is the first point of call. I bounced off ideas and we concluded that either Iya Wale, our mother, or my brother-in-law should be prepped to generate the code by midnight. Both are light sleepers, and I will be the coordinator as my wife and I have agreed that we shouldn’t use the lines we had used previously. I contacted another of my sisters whose son was supposed to register too, she’s also versatile in tech issues. She said that they generated the code earlier in January and her son’s school was handling the registration. Let’s wait for midnight then, we concluded.
Then I got a brainwave, another friend in our estate. He has a Glo line, maybe that would bring succour. My ever bubbling son was barely talking to me but I wasn’t bothered. We couldn’t generate the code still. By now, we were in May Day, May Day mode. We left the place separately, but I called Ibadan to activate emergency plans. Maybe registration would be easier there, maybe we could generate code faster. Few minutes after 9pm, my friend called. He has the code. Unbelievable. “Don’t joke with me, please,” I intoned. He forwarded it and I couldn’t believe it. My son suddenly became chatty and lively. For the first time in four days, I slept well.
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Then we moved to the next battle in the JAMB war. Registration at a CBT centre. Why, in the year 2025, you must get to some locations before you could register for an examination could only be explained by the Oloyede-led JAMB. So my wife and son set forth at dawn on Tuesday, 4 February. By 8am, the centre at Ilupeju was almost full. The staff there later said that they were going to attend to the spillovers from the previous day, more than 100. To make the centre more unattractive, it couldn’t register candidates for the UTME mock. That’s important as no one knows what will happen on the exam day. They moved to another centre. Some minutes after 5pm, our son was registered. Driving to office on Wednesday morning, a queue was already formed in front of the centre before 7am. It was still there nearly 12 hours on my way back.
In future some of us will be pontificating on patriotism and wondering how citizens just hate their country. We’re raising children disenchanted with the system and socialising them wrongly. Magnifying revenue generation of JAMB over candidates and their parents sanity and comfort must rank alongside masochism. The dehumanisation is unparalleled, and surely deserves an Olympic gold.
A friend told me today that his daughter will register tomorrow, I implored him to pack food for her. It’s a war out there registering for UTME. I’m glad this is my last child. I wish other parents well as they seek to register their children.
