JAMB to punish 16-year-old for altering UTME result
UTME candidates
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is set to charge Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma who is alleged to have scored 362 in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and was celebrated with admission and cash offers.
Odogwublog.com reported that the 16-year-old student of the Anglican Girls Secondary School (AGSS) Nnewi in Anambra State emerged the “overall best” student in the 2023 UTME.
A breakdown of her result showed that she made 98 per cent in English Language, 89 in Physics, 94 in Biology and 81 in Chemistry.
However, JAMB said it finally discovered that the candidate manipulated the result, alleging that Mmesoma inflated her score from 249 to 362 and went on to parade herself as the 2023 UTME top scorer.
The board said in a statement by its spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin, JAMB that it found the her case particularly pathetic as she had allegedly hoodwinked unsuspecting members of the public, including businessman, Mr. Innocent Chukwuma, who offered her N3 million in scholarship, while a state honour was being planned to celebrate her.
“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 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 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.
“With this her ignoble act, Miss Mmesoma would be prosecuted and her original result withdrawn.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,” Benjamin said.
JAMB also said it uncovered one Atung Gerald from Kaduna State, who never did the exam but claimed to have scored 380.
“His ethnic group had taken the issue up, requesting that he should be given special recognition only for the board to disappoint them with the incontestable fact that Atung never obtained the 2023 UTME application documents not to talk of sitting the examination,” Benjamin added.
