Globally, success or failure in the examination is the criterion for future prospects. Too much emphasis is placed on paper qualifications without any thought of the ability of the individual to put into practice the knowledge he claimed to have acquired.

In this respect, certificates are seen as means to an end. Thus, all means whether straight or crooked are employed to acquire them.

It has been revealed that the desperation by candidates for the high scores to enable them to study their dream courses at the university and pressure from their parents push them into falsifying their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. The culprits who were nabbed by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and confessed to falsifying their JAMB results also disclosed how examination syndicates which specialised in fake upgrade of results of candidates operated.

In the recent case, Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, Anambra, sat for the 2023 UTME and claimed to have scored 362. On July 2 this year however, JAMB, in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin accused the girl of manipulating her UTME score from 249 to 362. Miss Mmesoma and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) have therefore engaged in accusations and counter-accusations over the authenticity of the candidate’s claim of scoring 362 in the 2023 UTME.

With the acclaimed 362 score, Mmesoma said she was the highest scorer in the examination as against the 360 reportedly scored by another candidate, Umeh Ukechinyere. JAMB said that based on its record, Miss Ukechinyere scored the highest mark in the 2023 UTME and not Miss Mmesoma.

In a video which has since gone viral on social media, Miss Mmesoma displayed a notification of a result slip containing the 362 score, which she claimed was generated from the JAMB portal. But the examination body has since disclaimed the document, saying it stopped using such format for result slips in 2021. Meanwhile, JAMB has announced the withdrawal of the candidate’s 249 score, and suspended her from taking the examinations for the next three years.

It’s unfair, it wasn’t my fault – Mmesoma

Explaining her role in the matter, Mmesoma said it was not her fault and that the three-year ban placed on her by JAMB was unfair. She said; “After our exams, I went to JAMB portal to get my result but it directed me to another server and that was where I printed that slip from. I did not go to any computer centre. The only SMS I sent to them was through the JAMB support system and there was no reply. After all said and done, I now saw that I got 249. Then I sent them a text message through the JAMB support system to know what really happened”.

On the three-year ban placed on her by JAMB and the withdrawal of her result, Mmesoma said; “I am sad about it because it was not my fault that I printed my result like that and they said that I forged it. It is not my fault. So, it is not fair for JAMB to ban me”.

Sources at the JAMB however said the operators of the portal from where she printed the fake result are already on the run and the security operatives are on their trail. (Saturday Vanguard)

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