The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has imposed a three-year ban on Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme, who is entangled in a controversy about who received the highest score in the Board’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, this year.
This is exactly what the Board stated, and it has also revoked her examination result.
In an interview with the press yesterday evening, the Board’s spokesman, Dr. Benjamin Fabian, accused the lady of committing criminal conduct.
“What she did was to alter a result that was obtained by somebody in the 2021 UTME. She is banned for three years from sitting for the UTME, too. That result of hers, where she scored 249, has been cancelled as well,” he said on the phone.
Asked how the girl could have altered her result without connivance with somebody in the Board, Fabian said there was no hacking into the Board’s facility.
“Our results are safe, and nobody has hacked into them. She only altered her results, and the QR code will always show her true result,” he added.
However, Mmesoma, in a post on her Facebook wall, denied any wrongdoing.
“They are just trying to harass me and my family. After the results were released over two months ago, why is it taking them this long to say what they are saying now? Now, using the QR code indicates another name, Omotola Afolabi, which initially showed a score of 138 and, later, 338. Someone cannot have two different results from the same examination.
“I cannot do what they are accusing me of. I have been a brilliant girl since my Nursery School days. I scored over 300 in my common entrance examination to secondary school,” she stated.
Meanwhile, the Anambra State government has said it busted up the whole thing when it suspected that the score was fake.
This came as the chairman of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing, Chief Innocent Chukwuma, who earlier announced a N3 million scholarship to the girl, said she can no longer access the fund until the investigation is completed.
Mmesoma became an instant celebrity after her alleged 362 scores went viral as the overall best score in the 2023 UTME.
JAMB on Sunday declared Mmesoma’s 362 UTME score as fake and revealed that her score was manually inflated, as her original score was 249. JAMB also announced the immediate withdrawal of Mmesoma’s UTME score.
Anambra State Commissioner for Education, Professor Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, said she was the one that raised the alarm after the girl honoured an invitation in the process of the plan by the state government to honour her.
Chuma-Udeh said that after Mmesoma’s result was published online, she invited the girl for recognition by the state government, adding that when Mmesoma brought her result, she observed that it was not directly from the JAMB printout.
According to her, it was at that point that she became suspicious, which made her get in touch with JAMB to confirm the result. She stated that she was taken aback when JAMB told her that what was circulating was not its result.
She said it was at that point that her ministry turned back the girl, while JAMB began an investigation into the matter.
Meanwhile, the founder of Innoson Motors, Chief Innocent Chukwuma, who announced the N3 million university scholarship award to the 16-year-old Mmesoma shortly after her result went viral, has said that with the latest development, the girl can no longer access the fund, although the money had been paid into a dedicated account.
Describing the revelation as very unfortunate, Chukwuma said he was excited when he heard that the young girl came tops in the UTME, especially when he found out that she studied in a public school.
He said: “When I was told that a student of a public school recorded the highest score in the JAMB examination, I sent for the principal of the school, and the principal confirmed to me that it was true that the girl scored the mark.
“I said to myself that such a brilliant girl, if properly educated, will be beneficial to our country and the world at large, so I decided to award her a scholarship so that nothing will stop her from attaining a university education.
“When I awarded her the scholarship, I deposited $3,000,000 in a dedicated bank account and told the principal that the money is strictly meant for Mmesoma’s education at the university, which means that any time she needs to pay any fee at the school, they will let me know so that I will sign for withdrawal of the money from the account.“
Mmesoma claimed to have scored 98 marks in English Language, 89 in Physics, 94 in Biology, and 81 in Chemistry.
Incidentally, JAMB said the true highest scorer is also from Anambra State, like Mmesoma. He is Umeh Nkechinyere, with 360 marks.
