The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, says it has concluded its investigations into the alleged manipulation of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME’s result by a candidate, Mmesoma Ejikeme.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede announced this on Tuesday, noting that the findings revealed that what happened was a high-level scam and a careless forgery.
According to the JAMB Registrar, other candidates apart from Ejikeme were also involved in the malpractice but they chose not to go public.
Oloyede revealed that there is a syndicate behind the manipulation of results, which is trying to penetrate JAMB, but the board’s system is foolproofed against such attempts.
“The truth is that JAMB has concluded the investigation on Nmesoma’s score falsification matter. She was not the only one caught, just that others have chosen not to go out”, Oloyede said.
“Presently, there is an industry faking results and unfortunately they cannot penetrate JAMB system, reasons being that (our) system is foolproofed and we will prove it any time. It is unfortunate that parents and some of the candidates that are being fooled are not aware that they are only being fooled, Oloyede noted.
On the specific allegations against Ejimeke, the JAMB Registrar said the Anambra State student collaborated with some people to falsify her UTME result.
He said” “There is internal evidence to show that the change in Ejikeme’s scores was done with her collaboration. There are certain features pertaining to her that only her knows unless she makes it available to somebody else. They couldn’t have increased her scores on her behalf.”
Prof. Oloyede added that he had earlier spoken with a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, on Nmesoma’s matter, and told her that the student and her collaborators are living in the past as they have improved their facilities.
“We improved on our facilities this year, so Ejikeme and her collaborators are still living in the past. I spoke with Mrs Ezekwesili on the matter and I told her that it is a high-level scam and I told her that it was a careless forgery.
“This is because we are no longer using some of the things they used in changing those results since 2021. We used that pattern in 2021 and you saw what happened and many of such individuals were caught as well and they were treated accordingly,” he stated.