Ejikeme Mmesoma: All you need to know about the controversial UTME result
The claim by a teenage student Ejikeme Mmesoma that she had the highest score in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) sparked controversy and mixed reactions from Nigerians when her result slip surfaced online on Monday, July 3, 2023.
The result slip which has since been a subject of national debate, showed that Mmesoma scored 362, two marks higher than Umeh Kamsiyochukwu Nkechinyere, who the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the government agency that conducts the UTME, said had the highest score (360) in the 2023 UTME. However, JAMB stated that Ejikeme’s actual score was 249. The discrepancy ignited a heated debate, with some Nigerians arguing that the teenager is incapable of falsifying her own result, while others are demanding a thorough investigation and disciplinary action against all those found guilty in the controversy.
In a statement on Tuesday, July 4, 2023, JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, maintained that Ejikeme’s result was forged and withdrew her UTME score while barring her from participating in the examination for three years.
“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 Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, and in line with its established procedures, has withdrawn her 2023 UTME result and also barred her from sitting the Board’s examination for the next three years,” the statement reads in part.
However, on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, during an interview with Channels Television, Ejikeme Mmesoma admitted that she received a text message from JAMB indicating that her score was 249.
Ejikeme Mmesoma, who hails from Enugu State, is a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, Anambra State.
Nnewi is home to some prominent Igbo business moguls, like Innocent Chukwuma, Founder of Innoson Motors (IVM), Ifeanyi Ubah of Capital Oil, Cletus Ibeto of Ibeto Cement, and Cosmos Maduka of Coscharis Motors.
Romanus Ejikeme, in his reaction to the controversies trailing his daughter’s alleged result falsification, earlier claimed that the controversy was intentionally instigated to deny Ejikeme the scholarship offered to her by Innocent Chukwuma.
He said, “Mmesoma cannot manipulate her UTME score. I don’t believe what they are saying. They just want to transfer that scholarship to another person. That is why they are saying that Mmesoma did not make that score.”
Before discrepancies in her result gained public attention, Innocent Chukwuma had offered Ejikeme Mmesoma a scholarship worth ₦3 million. While Cornel Osigwe, Head of Corporate Communications at Innoson Group, said on Monday, July 3, 2023, that the group conducted their own independent investigation before issuing her the scholarship, she noted that the scholarship would be withdrawn if it was proven that the result was falsified.
“If we find out that the girl actually manipulated her result for obvious reasons, we will withdraw the scholarship,” she said.
While Neusroom’s message to the school authorities is yet to be responded to, Ejikeme Mmesoma has claimed on various occasions that she has held the first position since Nursery school.
Ejikeme, who attended Bright Primary School, Oba, in Anambra State, scored 334 out of 400 in her Placement Examination into JSS1, conducted by Anambra State Universal Basic Education, according to documents examined by Neusroom.
This is not the first time JAMB will be accusing candidates of inflating their UTME scores. In 2021, JAMB accused John Chinedu a 19-year-old man of tampering with his results. Chinedu, who was pursuing Medicine and Surgery as a course at the time, claimed that JAMB changed his results on three different occasions; 2019, 2020, and 2021. While Police later arrested Chinedu, his lawyer Ikeazor Akaiwe demanded ₦1 billion for the physical and emotional trauma he passed through as Chinedu continued to claim that he didn’t manipulate the results.
