The revelation, the other day, by the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Is-haq Oloyede, that 15,000 candidates forged admission letters to qualify for participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme is not just alarming, it signposts yet another sordid disclosure of forgery scandals in the country’s 65-year history. This episode underlines the urgent need to rebuild a culture of honesty before the rot becomes irreversible and further damages Nigeria’s credibility in the international arena.
  
Barely a month earlier, the former Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, Uche Nnaji, was embroiled in allegations of certificate forgery concerning his university degree and NYSC certificate. While he denied wrongdoing, media investigations revealed discrepancies, prompting his resignation. Before this, the country had witnessed several prominent leaders — including the late former Senate President Evan Enwerem, former Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives Salisu Buhari, and former Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun — fall victim to the scourge of forgery.
  
Ironically, Nigeria is ‘blessed’ with a long list of watchdog institutions — the Department of State Services (DSS), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP)  — all supposedly empowered to bark at and bite individuals creeping along the dark alleys of fraudulence. That is in addition to the myriad frameworks and in-house transparency units embedded across nearly every sector of the polity.
  
Notwithstanding, the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International ranks the country 140th out of 180 assessed globally. This context matters because, beyond indicting the entire education chain from JAMB to the NYSC, Oloyede’s disclosure of the 15,000 letters indicates a troubling national malaise: curbing the growing inclination toward forgery among some Nigerians will require far more than merely multiplying or toughening the watchdogs expected to safeguard public integrity.
  
The law of self-preservation is a fundamental instinct of humankind. People would naturally be inclined to protect whatever they believe is uniquely theirs and central to their well-being and overall existence. It is disheartening that, decades after Independence, fewer individuals seem to display unprejudiced allegiance to the State. It appears a new crop of Nigerians is emerging that sees the commonwealth as one huge pot from which they must hastily scoop their portions — largely by crook — before it dries up.
  
If they knew an array of anti-fraud agencies bolstered the country, the infamous 15,000 probably cared little. With repeated cases suggesting that the nation’s gatekeepers often look the other way, it becomes harder to overturn the growing perception that Nigeria’s watchdogs bark selectively. Whose DSS, EFCC or ICPC, some might dare to ask. And if the barking is cherry-picked — sometimes along ethnic or religious lines — should anyone be surprised when more citizens jettison faith in protecting the Fatherland and embrace the unscrupulous maxim: “Na who dem catch na him be thief”?
   
Again, the country seems to have run dry of patriotic models of integrity: men and women the youth could look up to, and from whom they could learn the arts of honest nation-building. One after the other, individuals, once revered as speakers of the near-extinct dialects of sensibility, have capitulated for gain. “Eshin iwaju ni teyin n wo sare,” the Yoruba would say, indicating that the crowd behind will almost certainly run crooked when the people in front have made crookedness the only visible path.
  
Curbing forgery and related offences in Nigeria, and saving the nation from a dismal future and ridicule among global partners, must not be a treatise on jurisprudence and more jurisprudence. The country that many great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers knew never needed policing by so many institutions and transparency initiatives. Yet, people maintained collective sanity and held their heads up high in rectitude. This was only possible because it was their society. They lived in it. They lived for it. And they believed in it enough to stake their souls for its cause.       
  
“We’ll fight for the right to be free, we’ll build our own society, we’ll sing our own song,” the British reggae and pop band UB40 sang in 1986. Nigerians — and indeed any society — would only rise from the ashes of pessimism and be motivated to build “our own” country when they are truly convinced it is theirs. It is time, therefore, to redefine the concept of ‘Nigeria’ in a way that its constituents and nationalities feel a sense of belonging and an irresistible duty to protect the commonwealth and its integrity, because — after all — they are ultimately protecting their own interests and long-term survivability.
  
This is by no means a justification for vile criminality. The JAMB Registrar’s announcement that “some deputy registrars are being tried by ICPC. Some deputy vice–chancellors, not less than 17, including four JAMB staff, are in prison custody” over the development is instructive. The judiciary should acquit itself by dispensing firm, credible justice, ensuring that intending forgers rethink their actions in the knowledge that consequences are inevitable.
  
The country must revise its educational philosophy, taking a cue from nations like China and Russia, where deliberate efforts are made to instil national consciousness in pupils. Children should grow up understanding that they are first and foremost Nigerians, and that their primary allegiance lies with their country. From the cradle, they must also witness a leadership that genuinely safeguards their interests rather than siphoning away their futures into private bank accounts.
  
At 65, Nigeria is not exactly a young country. Mistakes have been made in nation-building, but there is no need to continue along the paths of past errors. A reversal is still possible if leaders and stakeholders agree on how to build a nation that everyone can proudly call their own. Until every Nigerian sees their paternity reflected in the nation’s collective soul, it will be difficult to dissuade many — like the JAMB 15,000 and other forgers — from pointing at the Fatherland with the proverbial left hand.