The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has insisted that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination result being paraded by Ejikeme Mmesoma is “patently fake”.
The board also reassured that its system was neither tampered with nor compromised, stressing that 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.
JAMB, had in a statement on Sunday evening alleged 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.
Mmesoma who reportedly sat for the exam in Anambra State insisted that she didn’t forge her result as claimed by the examination board. “I am traumatised that they accused me of forging my results because I’m not capable of forging my result”, she said in a video released Monday.
But, the board in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Benjamin Fabian on Tuesday Morning, said the video was obviously stage-managed, and that the candidate, in her statement, “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.”
Read also: JAMB set to prosecute student who paraded fake highest UTME score
The board further noted that it stopped issuing Notification of Result slips which Mmesoma paraded after the 2021 UTME for the simple reason that candidates were falsifying them, and has been issuing actual UTME RESULT Slips (not notification of results ) since 2022 complete with the photograph of each candidate.
“To witness the unassailable position of the Board regarding this obvious falsehood, the general public is, therefore, urged to endeavour to scan the QR code on the result slip to see its actual owner before it was mutilated”, the board stated.
“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”, the statement further read.
“Similarly, the public is also invited to ponder on the fact that out of all the candidates that sat the 2023 UTME, only Ms. Ejikeme Mmesoma parades the obsolete ‘Notification of Result.’
“The board remains unperturbed by this unfortunate development as this is not the first time such fraudulent claims have been made. As such, Nigerians are urged to recall numerous occasions where the Board was sued for billions of naira only for the lawyers to later apologise profusely for their clients’ misadventure”, the statement read.
The board said the case has been handed over to relevant security agencies for thorough investigation to unravel the masterminds.
In the meantime, the management of the board, after considering the “weighty infraction’ committed by Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, and in line with it’s established procedures, has withdrawn her 2023 UTME result and also barred her from sitting the board’s examination for the next three years.
The board said it is not averse to public scrutiny and is ready for open public session involving relevant security agencies where the candidate , parent’s guardian and her legal team will be present.
JAMB also decried what it termed as “another frightening dimension”, “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 Ejikeme. The Board urges these confusionists to have a rethink as their evil machinations would soon come to light.
Again, the board restated its readiness for genuine scrutiny, saying 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”, the he board stated.
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