Change begins with Us

It's funny how whenever we talk about corruption in Nigeria, the first people (and most times the only people) we point at or mention are those in political positions, the politicians. Almost as if they're the only corrupt people we have in the country when in reality, it is all of us.

Yes, every Nigerian is always looking for ways to earn more than they should in any position that they hold, this (aside from the fact that we're really hardworking) might be one of the reasons why Nigerians are always successful wherever they go, because they're always looking for loopholes to explore and majority of the time, they end up finding those loopholes.

My school does this thing where they force every student to take a computer based test after writing the normal paper handwritten exams. And if we're being honest, the only reason they had introduced the computer based test (CBT) was to force students to pay their fees because without paying your school fees, you can't sit for that particular exam and not sitting for that particular exam would mean that you would have to carry over the course to the next semester. So you need your school fees receipt to be able to log into the system to sit for the exam.

Anyways, this exam always takes place after the main examination has been written and as usual, based on an idea that was rushed and not implemented properly, nothing always goes to plan when writing the CBT. It's either the computers available are not enough or some of it won't turn on, while some would turn on and then go off in the middle of the exam which would log you out, meaning you've automatically submitted and you're done with the exam.

I had taken a stroll into the school today to see how the exams were proceeding (I won't be writing mine until the 14th of this month), and the number of students I saw at the CBT center was shocking. The time was about 5pm and yet there were still hundreds of students lining up to get into the hall. I got to find out that some of the students had been there since morning and yet they haven't been given a chance to enter the hall to sit for the exam.

Seeing how I had a lot of free time on my hand and I wasn't really there for any specific reasons, I decided to investigate what was causing the delay and I soon found out that not alot of the computers were working and that the few students that were been allowed to enter the hall were those who bribed the guys incharge of letting students in.

_{Photo by Jesus Monroy Lazcano}

So as usual, we had somehow found a way to make money from something we shouldn't be making money from. Witnessing the many illegal transactions that were going on there just made me think about corruption and how the government are not the only ones to be blame. There is corruption everywhere and unfortunately the change we want will never come unless we're willing to change ourselves.