Ejikeme, JAMB And Trust Deficit

By Zayd Ibn Isah

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has recently come under fire due to its decision to declare the 362 marks allegedly scored by one Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma as blatant and deceptive forgery. This was contained in a statement released by the spokesman of the Examination Board, Fabian Benjamin. In that statement, the examination body claimed that Miss Mmesoma’s real score on the test was actually 249, as opposed to the 362 she claimed to have scored. The statement reads: “The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board 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.”

Predictably, this statement sparked reactions online with many holding divided opinions of how a girl of that age could carry out such a bamboozling heist. Meanwhile, Mmesoma quickly uploaded a viral video on social media insisting that the controversial JAMB result is original, as it was printed from the JAMB portal. She also added that she has been traumatised by JAMB’s allegation of forgery, and one imagines that this incident itself casts her in a most unflattering light. Not too long ago, Mmesoma’s high score was a cause for celebration and high praise, the climax of it all being her offer of a ₦3 million scholarship by none other than the management of Innoson Automobile Company.

In the video she uploaded, Mmesoma held up a printed copy of the controversial result, saying, “I am the owner of this result. I went to the JAMB portal to print this result. And this is what they gave me. This is exactly how I downloaded it from that side. So, they, now saying that I forged my result is what I don’t know. I am traumatised that they accused me of forging my own result.”

Miffed by her audacity to dismiss their allegation of forgery, the JAMB Board came out to reiterate their earlier stand that her result is patently fake. Their spokesman, Benjamin Fabian, said the Examination Board has subsequently withdrawn her result and barred her from writing the examination for the next three years. The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, also came out to speak on the matter. He insisted that the document being paraded by Mmesoma “belongs to another candidate who sat the examination two years ago.” He further said that if JAMB should open the can of worms of forged results, a lot of people would be devastated.

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The Anambra State government has set up a panel to investigate the allegation against Mmesoma. This is understandable as the state government also joined Innoson Motors to honour the girl with cash gifts and other accolades for doing Anambra proud. These hitherto enviable honours have now come to rot in the light of allegations that Mmesoma is mired in.

Presently, many still chose to opine that an error in JAMB’s system must have been responsible for the false result, especially now that Mmesoma confirmed that she had received an automated text message from JAMB indicating that her score was 249. The 19-year-old confirmed this during an interview with Sunrise Daily on Channels Television. Still, strong allegations of forgery should not be taken lightly. This is for those questioning the mental capacity of a teenage girl to indulge in such, as they may be oblivious to what children of this age can do and undo. Mmesoma might not even be alone in this fraudulent enterprise; many have done that before her without being caught. The trouble with her own case is that she went for the jugular, she wanted praises and encomiums for scoring the highest in JAMB. And could anyone really blame her? After all, she must have seen how prior highest JAMB scorers were celebrated nationwide, and she might have wanted the same special treatment by all means possible. It is quite plausible that she may have considered all of this without necessarily factoring in the possibility of comeuppance from overseeing authorities.

One almost wishes that the JAMB Registrar would open the can of worms and let heads roll. Forgery is a heinous crime in Nigeria. Section 467 of the Criminal Code Act in Nigeria states that: “Any person who forges any document, writing or seal, is guilty of an offence which, unless otherwise stated, is a felony, and he is liable, if no other punishment is provided, to imprisonment for three years.” Expectedly, Mmesoma’s certificate scandal has thrown up old fault lines which have only served to complicate things more than necessary. Some Nigerians feel the young girl is being victimized because she is from a certain part of the country. But those whipping up such ethnic sentiments may not know that the true highest scorer for the 2023 UTME as announced by JAMB is Nkechinyere Umeh, still from Anambra State, although she is a student of Deeper Life High School in Mowe, Ogun State. Those playing the ethnicity card may even know this, but just prefer to keep things boiling in order to heat up the polity.

At the centre of this controversy is the problem of trust deficit. Sadly, we don’t trust our public institutions to give free, fair and credible judgment. If we do, this issue wouldn’t have been dragging on for too long. The media war would have been needless. Some of us even expect that we would give Oloyede’s JAMB a benefit of doubt and not jump into conclusion. At least, the sagacious professor has been over and above board since he came on board as the Registrar. His tract records are there for us to verify. The bottomline is that no government agency can function effectively without the trust, support and confidence of the people it was instituted to serve. We need to imbibe the culture of giving our public institutions a benefit of doubt while they strive to serve us. After all, benefit of the doubt does not mean we should swallow everything they tell us hook line and sinker. No public institution is immune from reasonable scrutiny and criticism so far as such criticism is geared towards the betterment of said institution, rather than just pulling it down on the premise of malicious intentions alone.

Mmesoma’s result controversy should serve as a lesson to others who may be warming up. I know there are others who would still forge JAMB result next year, albeit with reinforced tactics and tricky techniques. After all, na who dem catch be thief for Naija. But while we are doing so, we should bear in mind the consequences of our actions, because everyday for the thief, one day for the owner. Another thing to keep in mind is that unflattering acts of criminality deserve commensurate punishment, not blind support or plain bias. As if the lessons from the Happie Boys saga wasn’t enough, a businessman by the name of Gaius Chibueze sprang to quickly offer Mmesoma a scholarship which would reportedly sponsor her university education abroad, proving yet again that as a country, we rarely ever punish bad behaviour in actuality.

Ultimately, there is a need to put proactive measures in place to make it difficult for people to compromise regulatory systems such as JAMB. However, much commendation should go to the examinations board for consistently rising up to the arduous task of maintaining the functional integrity of its systems, especially with the surge of technology and cybercrime. Although the young lady is still innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction, one hopes that she would drown out the noise of the chaos she is embroiled in and in so doing, learn a valuable lesson which would change her life for good. And it is our hope that justice should not only be served, but be seen to be served, even if it is to be tampered with mercy. After all, at the heart of this controversy is a young person still, one with a long future ahead of her and multiple chances for redemption: the miracle of a second chance, the chance to regain and restore trust, that valuable currency of life.

Isah, Media Aide to the Chairman, Police Service Commission, can be reached via [email protected]