Arowoogun Abiola Ade-Ire (www.afirika.com.ng)
The fake result saga involving a 16 year old Nigerian girl, Ejikeme Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School Uruagu in Nnewi, Anambra State, seems to have set for the peak as JAMB has slammed a three-year ban on the girl.
This was contained in a statement on Tuesday 3rd July, 2023 by JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin. She declared that “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 Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, and in line with its established procedures, has withdrawn her 2023 UTME result and also barred her from sitting the Board’s examination for the next three years.”
On how the girl came up with the results of 362 scores which she “parades” about as her result from the 2023 Jamb examination, Ms. Fabian Benjamin debunked the possibility of tampering with the board’s system. She claims that the “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.
She also claimed that “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”, reiterating the institution’s claim that Miss Ejikemi falsified the 362 result slip. She further claimed that JAMB stopped using the print-out currently being paraded by Mmesoma as her authentic result in 2021.
However, the Jamb’s recent claim that the institution’s “system was neither tampered with” is in contrary to their former position as the board had earlier accused the young girl of using software to manipulate her original score of 249 to 362.
Meanwhile, Mmesoma in a video that went viral on Monday 3rd July insisted that her result was not tampered with and has been gaining the sympathy of Nigerians including the owner of Innoson Motors who earlier awarded her a N3m scholarship, calling for a proper investigation as the Boards portal may have suffered a system error. She had in the said video exhibited the result slip which she obtained from JAMB as proof.
On the other hand, it is very disappointing that the DSS who had allegedly carried out an investigation into the saga has refused to make open the outcome of their investigation which would have rested the raised dust and stop the splinters that fly from all directions from the saga. It will be recalled that the young girl was early picked up from the Anambra State’s Commissioner of Education office for quizzing and then shortly released by DSS.
In a saner clime, DSS would have made public the findings from its investigation to provide answers to so many questions that are begging for immediate answers. Did the young and presumed innocent girl actually falsify the said result? If she did, how was she able to achieve that? Could it be that JAMB system is not as fortified as they claim and the system has been tampered with? Are these in-house collaborators? If the system was actually tampered with, could it be that JAMB could not openly admit the fallibility of their system but rather decided to make the erring girl the scapegoat.
We expect that reactions and counter-reactions from the principal actors in this saga will soon provide answers to these questions.