JAMB: Anambra pupil celebrated as top UTME scorer faked result

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, the pupil celebrated as the top scorer in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), faked her result.

In May, Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School in Nnewi, Anambra state, gained popularity for allegedly scoring 362 in this year’s UTME.

Although JAMB did not announce her as the overall best candidate, she was celebrated for her supposed heroics.

Innocent Chukwuma, the founder of Innoson Motors, also awarded N3 million scholarship to the student.

But in a statement on Sunday by Fabian Benjamin, its spokesperson, JAMB said the student actually got 249 in the exam.

The board said the student allegedly manipulated her result to “deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarship and other recognitions”.

JAMB added that the pupil and others caught manipulating their results would be prosecuted in due course.

“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 statement reads.

“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.

“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.”

JAMB had earlier declared Nkechinyere Umeh as the overall best candidate in the 2023 UTME.

Umeh, also a native of Anambra, scored 360 in the exam.