UTME: Anambra pupil admits she scored 249, says ban ‘unfair’

Ejikeme Mmesoma, the Anambra pupil, has admitted that she got a message from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) indicating she scored 249 during this year’s UTME. 

Since the release of the 2023 UTME results, Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School in Nnewi, Anambra has been attracting accolades from many Nigerians for allegedly being “the top scorer”.

But on Sunday, JAMB argued that she manipulated her result to “deceive the public to fraudulently obtain a scholarship and other recognitions”.

The exam body said the student “actually got 249 in the exam and not 362” as widely assumed.

The board also withdrew her result and suspended her from partaking in UTME for the next three years.

Mmesoma, however, dismissed the forgery allegation against her, insisting she printed her result from the examination portal.

In an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, Mmesoma confirmed that the message she got from JAMB’s USSD showed she scored 249.

She added that she sent a message to JAMB’s support system to know where the error came from.

“The only SMS I sent to them was through the JAMB support system. There was no reply. I sent a text message. They did not reply,” she said.

“It is not through USSD code. The one I checked with the USSD code is the one that I saw. After all said and done, I now saw that I got 249. And I sent them a text message to know what really happened to JAMB support system.

“If they go to their system, they will see it there.”

Mmesoma also spoke about the three-year suspension handed to her by JAMB, saying the sanction “is not fair”.

“I am sad about it because the problem might not be my fault. It is not my fault that I printed my result like that. And they said that I forged my result,” she said.

“So they banning me is not fair. It is not fair truly”.