Nigeria’s spectre of fraud appears to be expanding with students now claiming high scores in examinations to get scholarships and support from well-meaning and wealthy individuals.
One of the young fraudsters, Ejikeme Mmesoma, is already in trouble because the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has withdrawn her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result for alleged manipulation of her scores.
Earlier, Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME, was recently awarded a N3 million scholarship by Innocent Chukwuma, Chairman of Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing company .
In a statement signed by the Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin, on Sunday, said some of the 2023 UTME candidates are parading fake scores in order to get undue advantage.
The exam body, which also listed the case of one Atung Gerald in Kaduna that allegedly claimed to have scored 380, advised the public not to fall victim to the antics of the candidates.
The statement read in full : “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 is 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.
“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 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 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 same 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 desires 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”, he said.
“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.”
