Mercifully, the controversy surrounding the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result of Miss Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme in Anambra State has been laid to rest. It is just as well that the country has been spared the danger of tarnishing the image of its foremost tertiary admission institution, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Over the years, JAMB as a body has managed to build itself a respectable reputation necessary to put Nigeria’s educational sector into global recognition. Certainly, the dispute over whether the board was right or wrong in its handling of the allegation against Miss Ejikeme had the potential of undermining the body.
Many lessons are inherent in this fake result saga, one of which is the need for caution against whipping up ethnic sentiments at the slightest opportunity, and without verifying the surrounding facts. There should be no hurry to condemn an institutional action on mere suspicion of foul play fanned by ethnic, religious or other selfish bias, as some Nigerians did or attempted to do on the Ejikeme issue going by conversations in the mainstream and social media.
However, it remains sad that some Nigerians who, to all intents and purposes harboured unwholesome interest were determined to goad the candidate on the unproductive path to the extent of airing a “stage-managed video” without factually deconstructing the issues.
According to media reports, Miss Ejikeme, who was alleged to have inflated her UTME result from 249 to 362, while holding a printed copy of her fake and inflated UTME result initially denied the alleged manipulation of her UTME result in a viral video posted on a Facebook page, claiming that she scored 362; and that she downloaded and printed the result from the JAMB portal.
Again, Miss Ejikeme said that as a result of JAMB disowning the result and labelling it as fake or forged, she was traumatised. In her words, “I’m traumatised that they accused me of forging my own result. I am not capable of forging results.” Even as the entire saga is being unravelled, it would appear that there were irregularities in the way Ejikeme obtained her disputed result.
Her actions and claims therefore Ejikeme raise concerns about parental involvement or lack of it in the lives of children, the values inculcated in the country’s future leaders by the family, religious institutions, and schools.
Essentially, Ejikeme’s JAMB result saga is a needless imbroglio that could have been avoided had she had a more diligent mentorship. The fact unveiled indicates (dis)ingenious application of technology, inordinate ambition for fame by hook or crook, which was already translating to financial gain because she had attracted a N3 million scholarship from Innoson Motors. In addition, she was on the verge of getting an award from the Anambra State government before she was exposed.
However, JAMB’s position regarding this falsehood was instructive as the Board maintained that Ejikeme scored 249 and proved it. It is reassuring that the JAMB system was neither tampered with nor compromised as that could have a negative effect on the board as well as on higher education in the country.
According to JAMB Public Relations Officer, Dr Fabian Benjamin, the candidate kept sending request results to their office claiming that her result was mutilated. He said: “A Request is what the candidate sent and Response is from us. From what we have on our portal, instead of the candidate sending a request for UTME, she sent a report that she doctored. But our system kept responding back to her with her original result.
She would send a request, the system would send her original result…There was no time the system sent her a response of 362. Her result is 249. She typed 362 and sent it to the system as a request, but the system returned her original result of 249.”
The board said it is an incontestable fact that the UTME result being paraded by Mmesoma is patently fake; and that the candidate simply falsified a copy of a result slip of a candidate named “Asimiyu Mariam Omobolanle,” who sat the UTME in 2021 and scored 138.
Consequently, according to Benjamin, “the management of the Board, after considering the weighty infraction committed by 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.”
Furthermore, JAMB informed Nigerians that the Board stopped issuing Notification of Result slips in 2021 because candidates were falsifying them. Consequently, the Board had resorted to issuing an actual UTME RESULT Slip (not its notification) since 2022 complete with the photograph of candidates.
JAMB deserves encouragement for its profundity and focus in discharging its duties. It should remain ahead of disingenuous people and raise the bar by consistently improving JAMB systems to ensure that it is not compromised. In fact, JAMB has reduced inflated UTME results to ‘rubbles’ and made them useless. Other external examination bodies should borrow a leaf from JAMB and be methodical in defending the integrity of their processes as JAMB did. Similarly, JAMB and other relevant MDAs should be proactive and continuously sensitise the public about fake result syndicates.
It is unfortunate and unwarranted that some people seemed to want the saga to degenerate due to primordial sentiments by giving ethnic colouration to it. But facts are sacred. Coincidentally, the authentic highest JAMB scorer is from the same state as Ejikeme. Those who tried to twist Ejikeme’s JAMB result saga and play the ethnic card to undermine the integrity of JAMB processes should desist and rethink. Theirs is an ignoble path that should have no place in genuine desire to build the nation. In this particular instance, it has only helped to draw back the educational career of an otherwise promising young Nigerian.
All said, Nigerians should avoid hasty commentaries across media platforms and do due diligence before breaking the news and running commentaries to avoid misinformation and disinformation (fake news). In a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Nigeria, journalists, bloggers, content creators, and social media managers should begin to work together to ensure positive management of diversity to enhance national cohesion, not the contrary. In particular, now that the digital platforms have democratised the media space, that liberty should not be a licence for misinformation and disinformation.
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