It has come to light that In the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), Umeh Nkechinyere, hailed from Anambra State, emerged as the genuine top scorer, while Ejikeme Mmesoma fraudulently presented herself as the highest scorer from the same state.
The board declared Umeh, aged 16, as the top scorer with an impressive aggregate score of 360 during its 2023 policy meeting, conducted in Abuja on Saturday, June 24, 2023.
Umeh received accolades from JAMB for achieving the top scorer position, whereas the board rebuked Ejikeme for falsely portraying herself as the highest scorer.
In a statement released on Sunday evening, the board disclosed that Ejikeme had manipulated her UTME result, increasing it from 249 to 362. She then exploited this fraudulently inflated score to attract a ₦3 million scholarship from Innoson Motors. However, her deceit was exposed before the Anambra State government could present the scholarship.
‘The most pathetic of them all is the case of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded a ₦3m scholarship by Chief (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma.’
‘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 she claimed.’
‘She had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain a scholarship and other recognitions.’
JAMB’s statement fully reads: ‘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.’
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‘The most pathetic of them all is the case of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded a ₦3m scholarship by Chief (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma.’
‘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 she claimed. She had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarships and other recognitions.’
The Board firmly stated that individuals like Mmesoma are still present, deceiving those who hastily confer honors upon candidates without seeking confirmation 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 obtain the 2023 UTME application documents not to talk of sitting the examination.’
‘The Board would, therefore, want to advise the public to always cross-check these claims by candidates with the Board before rushing to honour them with undeserving awards as certain software have been created to fake their version of their results and put some out in the public space for fun and this is what the sponsors of these candidates are using to defraud good-spirited Nigerians such as Dr. Innocent, the founder of Innoson Motors, who sincerely desire to celebrate academic excellence by investing in the education of a young Nigerian.’
‘We 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, otherwise, they will be celebrating criminality as this is just another new fraudulent method in town. However, these candidates only succeed in manipulating what they are holding as the authentic results are 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. 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.’
Ejikeme will face prosecution, and the board will nullify her original result.
