WHO’S LYING?
Nigeria’s celebrated 2023 Best UTME Recipient, EJIKEME MMESOMA is parading a FAKE Result obtained from ‘Oluwole Market’–JAMB
…‘I didn’t forge any result, I am telling the world the truth. JAMB is discriminating against me due to my Igbo ethnicity, not on the merit of academic prowess’, Anambra candidate fires back
*JAMB says one Ejikeme Mmesoma used a hacking software technology to manipulate her scores, would be arrested, prosecuted for forgery and fraud
*“I’m the owner of this result. I went to the JAMB portal to print this result and this is the result they gave me. This is my aggregate, 362. This is exactly how I printed and downloaded it from their site. So saying that I forged my result is what I don’t know. It is an insult, so annoying and I am traumatised that they are accusing me of forging my results because I’m not capable of forging my result”-Distraught MMESOMA
*BY SHOLAPE ADEYEMI/SPECIAL Correspondent, Lagos & AHMED ABUBAK, ANTI-Graft Staff writer, ABUJA
NIGERIANS are searching to know:if the accusations made by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, against Ejikeme Mmesoma celebrated for having an outstanding 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME result is the truth or lies based on ethnic sentiment. JAMB has maintained that the UTME scores as presently been paraded was ‘doctored, manipulated with the use of a hacking software machine’. This claim has been refuted by Ejikeme saying JAMB only discriminated against her due to her Igbo ethnicity, not based on her academic accomplishment.
JAMB maintained that one Ejikeme Mmesoma celebrated for having an outstanding 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination result is parading a fake result. Mmesoma had claimed to have 362 in the examination.
The examination board said this on Sunday in a statement signed by its Head of Public Affairs and Press, Fabian Benjamin.
It vowed to withdraw the result which it described as inflated to attract a scholarship of N3 million from Innoson Motors and prosecute the candidate.
It said, “The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has been drawn to several publications in both print and online media celebrating certain candidates for being high scorers in the 2023 UTME.
“The Board is constrained to set the records straight and wishes to state unequivocally that many of the results which many of these candidates are parading are fake. In many instances, some of these candidates had actually obtained far lower scores than they are claiming and had used some funny software packages to manipulate their results to deceive unsuspecting members of the public.
“The most pathetic of them all is the case of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded a N3m scholarship by Chief (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma.
“She was even set to be honoured by the Anambra State Government when one of its top officials put a call through to JAMB to confirm her claim, only for the Board to reveal that Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma had actually scored 249 and not the 362 she claimed.
“She had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarships and other recognition.”
It further said, “Her original result remains 249, as nothing can change that.
“With this ignoble act, Miss Mmesoma would be prosecuted and her original result withdrawn. This is not all, as the Board would, in due course, investigate all candidates laying claims to higher scores than they actually obtained.
“Once discovered, such candidates’ original results would be withdrawn forthwith, and they would be handed over to relevant security agencies for prosecution.”
It also noted that one Atung Gerald in Kaduna, who claimed to have scored 380, “never obtained the 2023 UTME application documents, not to talk of sitting the examination”.
“The Board would, therefore, want to advise the public to always cross-check these claims by candidates with the Board before rushing to honour them with undeserving awards, as certain software has been created to fake their version of their results and put same out in the public space for fun, and this is what the sponsors of these candidates are using to defraud good-spirited Nigerians such as Dr. Innocent, the founder of Innoson Motors, who sincerely desires to celebrate academic excellence by investing in the education of a young Nigerian,” it said.
UMTE Candidate responds:
Mmesoma accused by JAMB of forging her 2023 UTME scores on Monday insisted that she didn’t forge her result as claimed by the examination board.
Ejikeme stated this in a video obtained by our correspondent in Abuja.
The PUNCH reports that JAMB in a statement on Sunday evening noted that Ejikeme manually inflated her UTME result from 249 to 362 and used her manually inflated score to attract a N3m scholarship from Innoson Motors and was set to be awarded by the Anambra state government before she was exposed.
“The most pathetic of them all is the case of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded a N3m scholarship by Chief (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma. She was even set to be honoured by the Anambra State Government when one of its top officials put a call through to JAMB to confirm her claim only for the Board to reveal that Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma had actually scored 249 and not 362 she claimed. She had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain a scholarship and other recognitions,” a statement by JAMB said.
However, speaking in the video, Ejikeme said, “My name is Ejikeme Mmesoma. I’m the owner of this result. I went to the JAMB portal to print this result and this is the result they gave me. This is my aggregate, 362.
“They scan the QR code on my result and it showed a Yoruba name-Omotola Afolabi who scored 138.
“The same Omotola scored 338 when it was rechecked and this evidence showed that there is a problem.
“This is exactly how I printed and downloaded it from their site. So saying that I forged my result is what I don’t know and I am traumatised that they accused me of forging my results because I’m not capable of forging my result,” she added.
She however stressed that both JAMB and DSS, when informed, did not carry out their investigation on the matter before the board concluded that she forged her result.
The spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin is yet to react to the video at the time of filing this report.
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