JAMB Registrar: There’s An Industry Faking UTME Results

Professor Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has revealed that there is an industry involved in processing and printing of fake results for students who sit for its examinations.

Oloyede made this known in the concluded investigations launched on the controversial results of a student in Anambra State, Mmesoma Ejikeme, who was accused of dubiously inflating her 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result.

The examination body boss made this disclosure in Windhoek, Namibia.

According to the JAMB registrar, “The truth is that JAMB has concluded its investigation on Mmesoma’s score falsification matter; she was not the only one caught, just that others have chosen not to go out.

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“Presently, there is an industry faking results, and unfortunately, they cannot penetrate the JAMB system. The reason is that the system is foolproof and we will prove it at any time.

“It is unfortunate that parents and some of the candidates who are being fooled are not aware that they have only been fooled.

“There is internal evidence to show that the change in Mmesoma’s scores was done with her collaboration. There are certain features pertaining to her that only she knows, and unless she makes them available to somebody else, they couldn’t have increased her scores on her behalf.”

Oloyede also disclosed that he earlier spoke with a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, on Ejikeme’s matter and told her that it was a high-level fraudulent act.

Ezekwesili had joined those who made critical comments about JAMB in the heat of the controversy.

“We improved on our facilities this year, so Ejikeme and her collaborators were still living in the past. I spoke with Mrs Ezekwesili on the matter, and I told her that it was a high-level scam, 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,” Oloyede added.

Recall that 19-year-old Ejikeme has been in the news following allegations of UTME score forgery.

On Tuesday, released a result slip, which it confirmed as original showing that the girl’s score in the 2023 UTME was 249 instead of 362, she had been parading.

JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, in a statement early Tuesday described the result displayed by Ejikeme as obsolete.

Benjamin said, “The board would like to reassure Nigerians that its system was neither tampered with nor compromised as 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.

“It is also instructive to note that the candidate, in her statement, has inadvertently revealed the rightful owner of the result she is parading when she pointed out that the QR code on the result slip showed the actual owner of the said result before she peddled a lie in an attempt to obfuscate the truth.”