By Chido Nwakanma
The Joint Matriculation and Examination Board doubled down Monday on its claims against Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme for alleged forgery of her JAMB score. It announced a three-year ban against her from taking the matriculation examination.
I find it curious. Could JAMB be right? What extraordinary evidence has JAMB found supporting its weighty allegation, which the victim and her parents spurned and countermanded?
JAMB played trial attorney, judge, and jury. It affirmed that its system was neither tampered with nor compromised.
It then said it handed the case to security agents- after pronouncing guilt.
The totality of their evidence is that the young woman sent messages to herself 17 times using the JAMB portal.
“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,” the exam body added.
JAMB put a spin on the QR code the young woman pointed to in her defence as wrongly appearing on her notification. Mmesoma claimed, “They scanned the QR code on my result and it showed a Yoruba name Omotola Afolabi who scored 138. The same Omotola scored 338 when it was rechecked, and this evidence showed that there is a problem.”
JAMB stated that it “is also instructive to note that the candidate, in her statement, has inadvertently revealed the rightful owner of the result she is parading. This she did when she pointed out that the QR code on the result slip showed the actual owner of the result before she peddled a lie to obfuscate the truth.”
JAMB added, “To witness the unassailable position of the board regarding this obvious falsehood, the general public is, therefore, urged to endeavour to scan the QR code on the result slip to see its actual owner before it was mutilated. It is to be noted that the QR code encapsulates the UTME result of each candidate. Hence, what is on the result sheet is nothing other than the interpretation of the information on this QR code.”
Strong claims. A convincing argument in JAMB’S favour is its claim to have stopped issuing notification of result slips in 2021 “to prevent candidates from falsifying their UTME results”. It said it now issues actual UTME result slips (not notification of results) since 2022, complete with the photograph of each candidate.
“Similarly, the public is also invited to ponder that out of all the candidates that sat the 2023 UTME, only Ms Ejikeme Mmesoma paraded the obsolete ‘notification of result’,” it stated.
I pondered and noted that THIS LAST ONE CONTRADICTS THE FIRST STATEMENT, where the same JAMB claimed another person forged a result even though he did not sit for their examination.
Mmesoma has a remarkable academic record. The HR rule says past performance predicts future potential. The result is within her ken.
There is a quandary. What would motivate this young girl to forge a result and claim to be the one with the highest scores? Did anyone hint at a possible prize to trigger her or the syndicate? Why would a teen with a proven academic record seek to follow the path of Oluwole in Lagos Island, the legendary foremost mill for forgery in West Africa?
JAMB leaves us only with questions. If you have already pronounced guilt and ban, why invite the security services? Will their duty be to rubber-stamp what you have done? Why invite civil society? Could you tell us what society will do precisely?
This matter should not end with us scratching our heads only.
- Culled from Facebook