‘My dream has shattered,’ says Nigerian nurse accused of cheating after arriving in Britain

WWhen I was a little girl in my village in Nigeria, going to school was something I couldn’t even dream of because we had no money. Then my mother sold everything we owned to send me to school.

I knew this was my only ticket to making something worthwhile out of my life and that of my family.

My father had abandoned my mother because she had given birth to girls, not boys, and he said ‘girls were worthless’. That put a lot of pressure on my little self, but made me determined to strive for it. I felt like I had something to prove to my father and that education was the way I could do that.

Eventually I was able to study nursing at university and became the top student in some of my exams, graduating with a degree in nursing.

I worked in two different hospitals in Nigeria and passed the exams I had to take to work in the UK, including the CBT – computer-based test – which I took at Yunnik. I studied hard for this test.

No concerns were raised by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) about my performance in CBT when I was in Nigeria and traveled to the UK after undergoing a series of interviews, criminal checks, health checks, work and school tests.

I sat and passed the OSCE – Objective Structured Clinical Examination – after arriving in Britain. This is another requirement needed to practice as a nurse here. In the fall of last year, NMC contacted me to express concerns about fraud at the Yunnik testing center, which they said they would investigate. I was accused of using a proxy to take the test there because of the quick time in which I completed the test. I deny this. I believe what is happening to us is a witch hunt.

I retook the test in UK and passed it in the same time but NMC said they are questioning my integrity even though I completed the test in similar times in Nigeria and UK. No one from NMC has ever worked with me and I have provided good character references from my line manager and university lecturers in Nigeria.

I have always been an inquisitive person and am highly motivated. But now I have lost my name, my integrity, my dreams and I feel like I have failed everyone who believed in me, and the little girls in my village who believed in themselves and their dreams because of me.

I don’t sleep at night. My pillows are always wet from crying. This feels like the end of my world because I had to give up all my dreams that I worked so hard for to get a better life for myself and my family. I am now a miserable person with a broken mind and I am about to have the word ‘criminal’ added to my name. My dream of being an international nurse who can work anywhere in the world has been shattered.