The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Prod Ishaq Oloyede on Tuesday said that Nigerians would be shocked if the board decides to further reveal details of the “forgery” perpetrated by Mmesoma Ejikeme, the candidate from Anambra State accused of manually inflating her UTME score.
Mmesoma was accused of forging her 2023 UTME result by the board on Sunday evening. She has since denied the allegations levied against her by JAMB.
Oloyede confirmed that the result paraded by Ejikeme was the template for a student who sat for UTME two years ago.
In an interview with Premium Times, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin said: “If you scan the code, the candidate’s result will show.
“So I can say emphatically that the girl is parading a fake result. It is either she is being duped, or she is part of a syndicate manufacturing purported JAMB results.
“There are security features on our results, so I can emphasise that the girl is just trying to deceive the public. Her result is completely fake. Her claim that she printed the result from our site is a lie, and totally incorrect. If we should reveal all that we know, people will be shocked. So if people are looking for shortcuts to achieve an end, that is what would happen.”
JAMB said the matter has nothing to do with its system, saying nobody hacked into its system and that the result did not emanate from its system.
“The result she is holding is completely fake because we are able to track everything printed from our system,” it said.
But JAMB insisted that she forged the result and placed a three-year ban on her.
Meanwhile, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has blacklisted one of its candidates from Anambra State, Ejikeme Mmesoma, for allegedly forging the result of her 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The board barred her from writing its examination for the next three years.
It confirmed the withdrawal of the result earlier issued to Ejikeme, claiming that she would not be able to use it in any tertiary institution across Nigeria.
JAMB’s Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Fabian Benjamin, announced this yesterday while speaking with The Nation on the sanction placed on Miss Ejikeme for her alleged manipulation.
The spokesman said security agencies were investigating the alleged forgery committed by the pupil.
He said the candidate would be prosecuted once the security agencies conclude their investigation and find her guilty of the alleged forgery.
Benjamin said: “We have withdrawn her result. She will never use that result. Even next year, she cannot register for our examinations.
“In the next three years, she won’t be able to write any JAMB examinations.
“Security agencies have taken over the case. After the conclusion of their investigation, JAMB will go ahead to prosecute her.”
Ejikeme has been in the news since Sunday when JAMB allegedly accused her of manipulating the UTME result issued to her.
The board said she manually inflated her UTME result from 249 to 362 to attract a N3 million scholarship from Innoson Motors.
She was also on the verge of getting an award from the Anambra State government before she was exposed.
But Miss Ejikeme has denied the alleged manipulation of her UTME result.
In a viral video posted on a Facebook page and released yesterday, Ejikeme, while holding a printed copy of her UTME result, claimed rightful ownership of the result.
Displaying the printed copy, she says: “I am the owner of this result. I went to JAMB portal to print this result and this is what they gave me.
“This is my aggregate score: 362. This is exactly how I printed it, downloaded it from that site. Saying that I forged my result is what I don’t know.
“I’m traumatised that they accused me of forging my own result. I am not capable of forging result.”
Ejikeme claimed that when she scanned her QR code, a different name, Omotola Afolabi, popped up with different aggregate scores: 138 and 338.
“They said that I forged my result. They scanned this QR code and it showed another name, a Yoruba name: Omotola Afolabi. That same person scored 138. When checked again, the person got 338, meaning that there is a problem somewhere.
“We went to the Commissioner of Education’s office on Friday last week: my principal, the Education Secretary of Anglican Girls’ Secondary School, Anglican Diocese. We showed all these results to the Commissioner of Education and the SMS they sent to me,” she said.
Responding to Ejikeme’s claim, JAMB Public Relations Officer, Dr. Fabian Benjamin in a telephone conversation with The Nation, said the candidate kept sending request results to their office while adding that her result was mutilated.
He said: “A Request is what the candidate sent and a Response is from us. From what we have on our portal, instead of the candidate sending a request for UTME, she sent a report that she doctored. But our system kept responding back to her with her original result. She would send a request, the system would send her back her original result.
“There was no time the system sent her a response of 362. Her result is 249. She typed 362 and sent to the system as a request, but the system returned her original result of 249. It got to a point she says UTME and the system would say wrong perimeter.
“She got a result slip. The QR code is the result. Whatever is on the paper is the interpretation of the QR code. She got somebody’s result sheet, mutilated it, and apparently, maybe scanned it, to change the name, change the registration number but forgot to remove the QR code, which is the actual result.
“If you scanned the QR code one million times, it will show you the name of Omobolanle. That is the owner of that result.
“That examination was written in 2021 and she scored 138. That is the owner of that result sheet. QR code is a security device. Supermarkets also use it. QR code is the result. Whatever is on that sheet is just an interpretation of the QR code. It’s only something that’s handwritten and that you cannot edit. She just edited it and started carrying it around.”
Also, the Anambra State government has instituted a panel of enquiry into the alleged result manipulation.
In a statement, Education Commissioner, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, described the development as very embarrassing, coming at a time when the Charles Soludo administration was repositioning the Education sector to get it right.
“Security agents are investigating the allegation of falsification of result levelled against Ejikeme Mmesoma, who had earlier been showcased in the social media as having scored the highest,” she said.
Also, her school has expressed shock over the development.
In a phone conversation, the school principal, Mrs. Uchechukwu Edum, told The Nation that the controversy over the score was not new to her.
But the head teacher said the school was awaiting the outcome of a detailed investigation by the Department of State Services (DSS) on the allegation.
One of Ejikeme’s benefactors, Innoson Automobile Company, has said the company would not withdraw the N3 million scholarship awarded to her pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation.
The company’s Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Cornel Osigwe, stated this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Onitsha.
“If we find out that the girl actually manipulated her result for obvious reasons, we will withdraw the scholarship.
“But if we find out that the mistake was actually from JAMB, that they were the ones that awarded her the score or probably did a review and found out that her actual score was 249, then our scholarship will still stand,” he said.
Also, a former Education Minister, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, suggested a thorough forensic investigation into the matter.
“This saga between Mmesoma Ejikeme and @JAMBHQ requires an Independent Tech investigation to unearth all facts. Listening to her in this video, it is reasonable to request a forensic investigation to help reveal what really happened. I have reached out to the Registrar of JAMB.
“An Independent investigation would turn this curious episode into a Learning Opportunity for @JAMBHQ and everyone, especially students.
“I frankly see no downsides in asking a team of Independent Technology folks to investigate and publicly share their findings. Let’s do it,” she said.
