The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has called called the attention of the public to dubious claims of high scores by some candidates in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
This followed spurious claims by some of the candidates trending on the social media regarding their scores in the examination.
In a statement signed by the body’s Head, Public Affairs, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said: “The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB) 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 actually 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, according to the examination body, was 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 (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma.
JAMB noted that 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 as claimed by her.
The body disclosed that the candidate had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarship and other recognitions.
“The board would like to state that the likes of Mmesoma are still out there deceiving those who are always in a hurry to bestow honours on candidates without confirming from the Board.
“A similar case was that of one Atung Gerald in Kaduna, who 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 for the examination”, JAMB said.
The board, therefore, advised the public to always cross check claims by candidates with the it before rushing to honour them with undeserved awards as certain software have been created to fake their version of their results and put same out in the public space for fun, adding that that was what the sponsors of these candidates were using to defraud good-spirited Nigerians such as Dr. Innocent, the founder of Innoson Motors, who sincerely desired to celebrate academic excellence by investing in the education of a young Nigerian.
JAMB, however, commended the likes of Dr. Innocent Chukwuma and wish to encourage other Nigerians, who desire to invest in the future of genuine youngsters never to be discouraged, but to always ensure that they get the authentic results from the board as done by the Anambra State Ministry of Education, adding that otherwise they will be celebrating criminality as this was just another new fraudulent method in town.
While the fraudulent candidates only succeeded in manipulating what they were holding the examining board affirmed that the authentic results were with the board and would be transmitted to their schools of choice at the appropriate time.
“It is to be noted that Miss Mmesoma had sent a message to the Board’s platform to request her UTME result after which she manually inflated her scores and pasted same on the 2022 UTME result sheet, but unknown to her, the board had changed the design of the 2023 UTME result sheet. Her original result remains 249 as nothing can change that. 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”, JAMB declared.
