The candidate at the centre of a UTME results forgery allegation, Mmesoma Ejikeme, says the three-year ban instituted against her by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is “not fair”.
The 19-year-old claims she printed her “results notification” paper for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, which showed a score of 362 out of 400, from the JAMB results portal, but the board alleges she is displaying a fabricated result on a template it abandoned in 2021.
Her official score is 249 points.
On Tuesday, JAMB declared that her score was “patently fake,” stating it had withdrawn it and prevented her from taking the exam for the next three years.
Mmesoma, who appeared with her father Romanus on the Wednesday edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, believes she should not be blamed for the controversy.
“It’s not my fault that I printed my result like that and they said that I forged my result. It’s not my fault. So, them banning it is not fair,” she said.
Appearing on the show on Tuesday, JAMB spokesman Fabian Benjamin revealed its records indicated the candidate had sent a series of messages to the board’s automated telecoms system, including the results showing an aggregate of 362.
Responding, Mmesoma said the only SMS she sent to JAMB was through its support system: “That’s the only SMS I sent there.”
Asked if she got any feedback, she said, “They didn’t reply. If they check their JAMB Support System, they would see that I sent a text message. They didn’t reply.”
On the claim that she used an Airtel line, Mmesoma replied: “Yes,” but she added it was “not through USSD code”.
“The one I checked through the USSD code is the one of 360 (sic) that I saw,” she explained further.
Responding to the claim that the feedback from JAMB showed her score as 249, she agreed.
“Yes,” she said. “After all said and done, I now saw that I got 249. I sent them a text message there to know what really happened — the JAMB Support System. If they go to their system, they will see it there.”