The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Isaq Oloyede has said that 19-year-old Mmesoma Ejikeme, who forged her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result, was lucky to have escaped being convicted.
He stated this on Thursday at the 2024 Policy Meeting held in Abuja. The meeting was attended by vice-chancellors, registrars, rectors, provosts and admission officers of all tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
The registrar revealed that a student who committed a similar offence like Mmesoma in Ondo State was sentenced to one year jail term, adding that about 30 others were arrested for a similar crime during the 2024 UTME. However, the representative of the police at the event stated that only eight of the arrested candidates remained in detention.
Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, made the headlines after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board called her out for fraudulently manipulating her UTME score from 249 to 362, thereby falsely parading herself as UTME top scorer for 2023.
Before admitting the forgery, Mmesoma had engaged JAMB in accusation and counter-accusation, with the exam body slamming a three-year ban on her.
She also appeared before a panel of the House of Representatives in Abuja, where she tendered an apology to the exam body and pleaded for leniency.While briefing journalists, the Anambra State Commissioner for Education recalled that a panel set up by the state to investigate the matter recommended that the teenager should be made to undergo a psychological counselling and therapy.
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He said, “Of Mmesoma’s case, Mmesoma was just lucky, if she is lucky at all. But you know that her colleagues were sentenced. I gave you an example of what happened in Ondo, with one who did a similar thing. He was sentenced to one-year imprisonment. This is to serve as a deterrence for others. For 2024, more than 30 were arrested, eight now are in custody. They used to be 30.”
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