Ejikeme Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School in Nnewi, Anambra State, has denied the allegations made against her by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
KanyiDaily recalls that JAMB had accused Ejikeme Mmesoma of inflating her result and announcing herself as the top scorer for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
JAMB spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, said the 16-year-old student, who was widely celebrated for scoring the highest mark of 362 in the UTME, actually scored 249 in the just-concluded exam.
Benjamin claimed that the pupil tampered with the original result to seek favour from the Nigerian public, stressing that the result would be withdrawn while Mmesoma would face prosecution.
Reacting to the allegations in a video, Mmesoma Ejikeme expressed surprise that a result she reportedly printed out from the JAMB portal could be termed by the examination board as fake.
The 16-year-old, who said she was traumatized by the claim made by JAMB, narrated how she was arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) who took her statement.
Mmesoma said the DSS told her that they would investigate the matter, only of JAMB to accuse her of forging her result without the probe. She said she is not capable of doing what JAMB accused her of doing.
She said: “I am the owner of this result. I went to JAMB portal to print this result and this is what they gave me. This is the result here. This is my aggregate, 362. This is exactly how I downloaded it from that site. So, they (JAMB) now saying I forged my result is what I don’t know; and I’m traumatised that they accused me of forging my own result.
“I am not capable of forging results. This is the evidence. The QR code on the result was scanned and it showed another name, a Yoruba name, Omotola Afolabi, 138. That same person that got 138, they checked again and the person scored 238; meaning that there is problem somewhere.”
Mmesoma Ejikeme explained that she was at the office of the Anambra Commissioner of Education on Friday with her secondary school principal and the Education Secretary.
“We showed this result to the Commissioner of Education, both this one and the SMS they sent to me. So, she snapped it and sent to the JAMB officials. They called back, saying that this was a forged result, that I forged it myself, that the JAMB office doesn’t have a record of this.
“They called the DSS over to come to her office. The DSS took us to their office and we made our statement there. The DSS said they would contact us later, that they are going to investigate this result to know where it came from.
“Instead of them (JAMB) to wait for the investigation to be over, they posted that I forged without confirming. I’m really really sad about it.
“Since my nursery school I have been taking first. I scored over 300 in my common entrance. I’m a brilliant girl. I am not an illiterate that would forge results,” Mmesoma Ejikem added.
Watch the video below:
KanyiDaily recalls that Innoson Group had reacted to the allegation of certificate forgery against Ejikeme Mmesoma, stressing that JAMB should investigate the matter because the girl “does not have the brain and capacity to manipulate her result.”