Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, the 19 years old examination and age falsifier who almost scandalized the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) early July, seems to have practiced the act of deception with the fallen angels before her incarnation
By Charles Uzoma
Benjamin Franklin, the American scientist and philosopher (1706-1790), may not have had the likes of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma in his vision of what poverty can do to depraved minds, when in his memoir he painted an unpleasant picture of effects of poverty. More than 300 years after, Franklin’s description of poverty has caught up with Mmesoma who is proudly dancing the ugly tune. Franklin had then argued, “Poverty often deprives a man (and woman) of all spirit and virtue, it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright”.
Mmesoma is the 19-year old girl, though she and her family claimed she was 16, who consciously falsified her Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) result for the year 2023. Her audacity to present lies and duplicity as if they are facts is awesome, her persuasive demeanor is equally overwhelming, while her prank can cause any sane human to appear gullible and dancing to her well packaged innocent prank. Thus Mmesoma in her claim to be a juvenile was able to manipulate and falsify her 2023 JAMB result, scoring herself 362 against the 249 mark awarded her by the University Matriculation Examination body.
So, when Mmesoma’s JAMB exam manipulation scam was made public on Sunday, July 2, 2023, JAMB was almost made a scapegoat as the Board was promptly caught in the web of alleged inefficiency that has bedeviled public institutions in Nigeria. Tongues had begun to wag as to why JAMB would tribalise its examination and try to deprive the hapless Mmesoma of her hard-earned result because she is from a certain geo-political zone of the country.
But JAMB had insisted that Mmesoma was a fraudster who awarded herself the fake result that placed her as the highest scorer in the Board’s 2023 examination. Through its Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Mr Fabian Benjamin, the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) handler, JAMB, had alerted the general public that Mmesoma did not deserve to be recognized as the highest scorer at the latest UTME, or to be conferred with any award either in monetary terms or through a scholarship.
Benjamin, the JAMB image maker had said in a statement issued on that same Sunday quoted one “Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded N3m scholarship by Dr. Innocent Chukwuma and also the case of one Atung Gerald in Kaduna, who claimed to have scored 380.” While Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma had actually scored 249 and not 362 as she claimed, Atung Gerald did not obtain the 2023 UTME application documents, let alone sit for the examination. Mmesoma, according to JAMB, had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarship and recognitions.
The statement read: “The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has been drawn to several publications in both print and online media celebrating certain candidates for being high scorers in the 2023 UTME.
“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 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 N3m scholarship by 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 obtained the 2023 UTME application documents, let alone sit for the examination.
“The Board would, therefore, want to advise the public to always cross check these claims made by candidates with the Board before rushing to honour them with undeserving awards as certain software have been created to fake their version of their results and put same out in the public space for fun.
“This is what the sponsors of these candidates are using to defraud good-spirited Nigerians, such as Dr. Innocent, the founder of Innoson Motors, who sincerely desires to celebrate academic excellence by investing in the education of a young Nigerian.
“We commended the likes of Dr. Innocent Chukwuma and wish to encourage other Nigerians who desire to invest in the future of genuine youngsters, never to be discouraged but to always ensure that they get the authentic results from the Board as done by Anambra State Ministry of Education, otherwise they will be celebrating criminality as this is just another new fraudulent method in town.
“However, these candidates only succeed in manipulating what they are holding as the authentic results are with the Board and would be transmitted t to their schools of choice at the appropriate time.
“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.”
When JAMB released its statement early July, the public had run amok, hounding and pounding JAMB with a confusing backlash. The backlash was mainly orchestrated by sympathizers of Mmesoma, especially from the South east where she hails from. JAMB was addressed in unprintable words in both the social and traditional media. The UTME organizer was almost defeated. This was against the backdrop of the N3,000,000 cash award donated to the girl by the promoter of Innoson Motors, Dr. Innocent Chukwuma, as well as a scholarship awarded her by the company, as the Anambra State Government was also making the arrangement to celebrate her alleged feat publicly.
Both JAMB and Anambra State Government were almost put in a state of confusion as the father of Mmesoma , Romanus Ejikeme had begun to shed crocodile tears that the Board was orchestrating a plot to deny his daughter her hard-earned success at the exam which prompted the scholarship. Her home state, Anambra had said it would investigate into the Mmesoma case to determine the truth.
Mr. Ejikeme, Mmesoma’s father had claimed, “Mmesoma is my first child. She had always taken first position from the time she was in the nursery school at Ogbunike Central School. Mmesoma cannot manipulate her UTME score. I don’t believe what they (JAMB) 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”.
In a similar vein, a die-hard sympathizer of the Mmesoma family, Mr. Victor Uwaje said to be an investigation specialist based in the United Kingdom had lashed out at JAMB, claiming that, “It was rather unfortunate that JAMB being the Nigerian entrance examination board for tertiary institutions, has been reduced to an object of ridicule. How do you accuse a teenager of fraud without proof?
“In saner climes, things of this nature are well investigated before they get to the public domain, but JAMB has instead resorted to media trial” Uwaje chided JAMB.
To further worsen JAMB’s situation as to how it got its claim, Mmesoma herself had made a video which she sent to the social media claiming her innocence while she insisted that JAMB was the culprit. Appearing also on Channels Television on Wednesday July 5, 2023, she had also continued her lies and deception, but was caught in her own deception when she admitted that JAMB did send her the real result she obtained in the exam which is 249.
Earlier, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) had also taken a swipe against JAMB, accusing it of victimizing Mmesoma.
The Nnewi Diocese of Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, owner of the Anglican Girls Secondary School where Mmesoma attended her secondary school, also took interest in the matter even as it cautioned its staff not to comment on the matter until the truth was revealed.
Incidentally, JAMB stood its ground and insisted Mmesoma was a fraudster. JAMB had slammed her with sanctions to wit: “In the meantime, the management of the Board, after considering the weighty infraction committed by Miss 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 three years”.
As JAMB went into deeper investigations to convince the public that it was sure of Mmesoma’s fraudulent act, the girl and her father, realizing that JAMB was closing in on their duplicity, had begun to throw up their poor background in order to attract more sympathy. They had claimed the family had no money to procure a fake result for Mmesoma.
While sympathy for them was waning, Osita Chidoka, a former Minister for Aviation, had punctured the Mmesomas bag of lies when he revealed that “For Mmesoma, she should come clean and explain how she got that result and who led her down that path. If she does that, I’ll lend my voice to beg JAMB to note her age and show more leniency”.
Chidoka stressed that Mmesoma took the JAMB examination at his Computer Based Center (CBT) identified as Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development). Chidoka’s revelation did hit the Mmesomas below the belt.
Thus, at the probe panel set up by the Anambra State Government, Mmesoma accepted, to the chargrin of the panel members that she actually used her phone to manipulate and falsify her UTME result.
The eight-member probe committee therefore recommended that Mmesoma should tender an unreserved apology to JAMB for her deliberate act to try to impugn the reputation of the Board.
The panel report read in part, “The results she sent differed substantially from the standard JAMB format where she got an appropriate rebuttal stating her real score of 249.
“Besides, several red flags were also highlighted by JAMB officials showing a different date of birth, different registration number, and notification of result template that has been discarded since 2021 among others.
“It was also evident that even the center name ‘Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development as it was known before now) used for the examination, was also manipulated where the candidate used the old name of the center (Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development) in her own manipulated result sheet.
“In Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma’s submission, she owned up in the presence of her Principal and Education Secretary that the narration by the JAMB officials was true and correct description of what transpired.
“She also admitted to have given a manipulated result by herself unaided, using the same phone number.
“We hope that this unearthing of the truth as we discovered will go a long way in correcting the sentiments, misconceptions and deceptions that have been in the public domain”.
Mmesoma was not spared by her benefactor, Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing as the latter through a statement said it had withdrawn the scholarship it offered the lying student.
