A former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has reacted to the results controversy surrounding 19-year-old Anambra student, Ejikeme Mmesoma.
OsunDailyNG reports that Mmesoma had paraded a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result slip earlier, showing her having a 362 score.
The claimed result put her as the overall best candidate in the year’s joint examination, allowing students to apply for their preferred choice of higher institution.
After the student had gone viral and got a scholarship for scoring 362 in the UTME, JAMB countered Mmesoma’s claim and said she manipulated her result to “deceive the public to fraudulently obtain a scholarship and other recognitions”
JAMB, who insisted that the young girl forged the result on a template it stopped using in 2021, withdrew her result and suspended her from partaking in UTME for the next three years.
However, the student has admitted that JAMB actually notified her that she got 249 in the exam during an interview on Channels Television.
Reacting to the development in a statement on Twitter on Wednesday, Chidoka said he will plead for leniency on behalf of Mmesoma if she admitted that her UTME result was fake.
The former minister, who is also an indigene of Anambra, said he became suspicious immediately after he saw Mmesoma’s result due to some discrepancies.
According to the chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the controversy has shown the general level of distrust in the country’s institutions.
He wrote: “I observed two significant red flags when I saw her result online. First, since 2021, the JAMB portal stopped referring to our center as Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development. The correct name on the JAMB portal and the Main Examination Slip is Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development).
“Due to the difference in our CAC registration details, JAMB insisted we change to Nkemefuna Foundation with Thomas Chidoka in a bracket as an identifier. We implemented the name change in 2021. As is to be expected, the Main Examination Slip bore the core name, Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre), but the result she presented had just Thomas Chidoka Centre without the prefix, Nkemefuna Foundation. This error raised my suspicion about the genuineness of the presented result.
“The second red flag was the result template. A cursory review of some of those who took the last examination at our center showed a different result slip template with the candidate’s passport picture, JAMB watermarks, and no mention of the name of the examination center.
“I gave the young Nmesoma the benefit of the doubt and waited to see if she would explain how she got the result, which is obviously not the approved JAMB result template used in 2023. Without that explanation, I knew it was a fake result.
“Nmesoma should come clean and explain how she got that result and who led her down that path. If she does that, I will lend my voice to beg JAMB to note her age and show more leniency. A child her age deserves a second chance after she shows remorse and demonstrates that she has learnt the value of integrity.”
