By Starrys Obazei | July 4, 2023.
starrys@ddnewsonline.com
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, said it has banned Anambra student, Mmesoma Ejikeme who was accused of forging her 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination result from taking the board’s examinations for three years.
Insisting that the Anambra student forged her result, the board said that it carried out high-level investigations before concluding.
The spokesperson of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this in a statement released on Tuesday.
He said: “In the meantime, the management of the Board, after considering the weighty infraction committed by Ms. Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, and in line with its established procedures, has withdrawn her 2023 UTME result and also barred her from sitting the Board’s examination for the next three years.
Benjamin again reiterated the board’s earlier position that the UTME result being paraded by Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma was fake, saying the candidate’s account was an attempt to rewrite the truth.
“Consequently, the Board would like to reassure Nigerians that its system was neither tampered with nor compromised as the candidate simply falsified a copy of a result slip of a candidate named “Asimiyu Mariam Omobolanle”, who sat the UTME in 2021 and scored 138. It is also instructive to note that the candidate, in her statement, has inadvertently revealed the rightful owner of the result she is parading when she pointed out that the QR code on the result slip showed the actual owner of the said result before she peddled a lie in an attempt to obfuscate the truth.
“To witness the unassailable position of the Board regarding this obvious falsehood, the general public is, therefore, urged to endeavor to scan the QR code on the result slip to see its actual owner before it was mutilated. It is to be noted that the QR code encapsulates the UTME result of each candidate, hence, what is on the result sheet is nothing other than the interpretation of the information on this QR code.
“Furthermore, the public is also to note that the Board stopped issuing Notification of Result slips after the 2021 UTME for the simple reason that candidates were falsifying them. Consequently, the Board has been issuing actual UTME RESULT Slips (not notification of results ) since 2022 complete with the photograph of each candidate,” he said.
Speaking on the bad publicity the whole controversy has generated for the board, Benjamin said that it was unperturbed as this is not the first time such fraudulent claims have been made.
He recalled an incident in 2021 where a candidate, John Chinedu Ifesinachi wrote a letter to the Board, threatening to sue for N2 billion damages, only for him and his counsel to tender unreserved apology when the candidate eventually confessed his crime in the face of incontrovertible facts in an open investigation observed by several national public institutions including the Public Complaints Commission, National Human Rights Commission, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council, Servicom and media houses.
The board, meanwhile, regretted the different coloration added by some “unwholesome” interests who are ready to lead the candidate to a destructive end, urging those doing that to retract
“Another frightening dimension to the unfolding drama is the unwholesome interest of some nefarious elements, who to all intents and purposes, are determined to goad the candidate on this unproductive path as any casual observer would observe with the obviously stage-managed video aired by Ms. Ejikeme. The Board urges these confusions to have a rethink as their evil machinations would soon come to light”
“Again, the Board restates its readiness for genuine scrutiny as this case would not be the first time and might not even be the last of such shenanigans. At the end of the day, the truth would manifest and the Board vindicated.
“In the meantime, the management of the Board urges members of the public to examine critically the issue at hand and avoid fake news trafficking,” the statement said.