WRITING JAMB EXAMS IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS…

The other day, a kid I know wrote JAMB abi na UTME exams and a few days later, told me the results has been released.

Y’all remember that old Western Union advert where the old man exclaimed.”techy-nology!!!”. That was the thought that came to my mind.

Kids of these days just sit in the comfort of their homes and use the phone to check their results. How times have changed.

In our time, the process was not that easy o.

It usually started with the announcements in newspapers and on NTA(the only TV station with a national reach) and this was usually around November or December.

MODE OF PURCHASE OF FORMS:

You either went to buy a form at JAMB office (at Obayagbona Street, off Ekehuan Road and later, Ikpokpan Road in Benin City) with the sum of N1,500 or obtain a bank draft from Afribank(now Mainstreet Bank for N1,650). Then, you are given a set of forms, including a card. One of the forms will be filled with pencil and the others with biros. After completing the forms, you filled two self-addressed and stamped envelopes and put it inside the big “JAMB-crested” envelope.

PREPARING FOR EXAMS:

After you have submitted your forms, you go and start reading seriously for your exams. If you like, no read better textbooks, go dey read Exam Focus and key point (especially if you dey do Literature), you hear. OYO will be thy case.

The date for the exams will be announce by JAMB and the exams were usually in April or May.

If by the Wednesday before the exams, you have not received a mail (not e-mail o. Who dash fowl condom?), just know the “winches ” in your village are working overtime on your case. In that case, proceed with stupendous alacrity to the special centre nearest to you. In Benin City, it was Idia College at Urubi. Just make sure you eat well because you may get there at about 7 am and leave in the evening (all spiritual factors held constant). When you get home. It means you have only Friday to prepare for your exams. You will try to recall all you have read all the while.

On Saturday morning, you will proceed to the exam hall with only your pencil, “carve-lead” or “sharpener” and your cleaner or eraser. When you finish the exams, you go home and continue to fast and pray in the interim.

RELEASE OF RESULTS:

Sometime in August or November, you will receive the news that the results have been release. If your heart did not triple palpitation this period, you are capable of murder. You then proceed to JAMB office with your slip. When you get there, it will seem as if the whole town was gathered there. If you are not there around 7 am, OYO. The staff will stroll in around past 8 and ask us to form lines (na there Naija peeps go show demselves).

We will finally be able to form lines and they will be issuing results by either writing on the slip or calling your results out loudly. You will hear,” Imatitikua Egbenayaloben, 012”. Everybody go just know your score.

That was how one guy was on the queue and they were calling scores. The three people before him had high scores as they called the results. When they called his name, he was smiling as if exam success na communicable disease only for him to hear “007”.na James Bond?

If you are wise, as you dey go the place, you go carry money for Poly JAMB form follow boy, so that if your result no pure, you go buy the form.

Repeat this process annually till you make the score required for the course you want to study or find your way to COLBEN!!!

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