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MMesomaChukwu's JAMB Fraud - The Full Story
It seems that every month a new story comes up in Nigeria to keep her citizens busy with gossip. From the months of January to April, the gossip cycle revolved around the Presidential electoral candidates; in May, the country was going nonstop about the Guinness World Record breaker, Hilda Baci. In June we were graced with stories of the star couple – Banky W and Adesua, as well as other famous celebrities like Davido.
The month of July is still fresh and now the youth have decided to stir up the gossip cycle in the air. On the 2nd of July, 2023, the Joint Admission Matriculation Board announced on social media that the UTME score of 362 paraded by Ejikeme Mmesoma which had bagged her a scholarship worth three million Nigerian naira from Innoson Motors, was actually a fraudulent act as her original score is said to have been 249.
JAMB earlier in the month had announced the highest UTME score for the year 2023 to be held by a student from Anambra State. In the late weeks of June they were contacted by the Commisioner of Education in Anambra about the news of a higher UTME score, but unfortunately, such a score was not found in their system for the year.
Mmesoma was given a suspension from writing the JAMB UTME exam for three years, and her result of 249 dismissed. This immediately spiralled into a massive battle between the government and the masses. The government of Nigerian has always been called corrupt, so it was no shock to see all fingers pointed at the JAMB body to be at fault. If history is traced, in the year 2019 many exam candidates had multiple scores in the JAMB UTME exams held that year when checked with the body’s code ‘55019’. This even summoned up a trend whereby students showed their multiple scores while playing Drake’s song ‘Flip the Switch’. The war has been hot with JAMB fighting for their credibility and Mmesoma, her name.
As usual, the masses of Nigeria came together to defend one of their own. Two renowned lawyers namely, Ndidi Anike and Barrister Chibuzo Nwankwo made known on social media that they would gladly defend Mmesoma and help her prepare adequately for a legal battle with the government examination body.
Also, a popular individual, known as BitcoinChief went out on twitter to announce that his company Voice of the East would sponsor Mmesoma in the United Kingdom, Canada or United States until her Master’s Degree, claiming JAMB’s allegations as “not just an attack on her person but the entire Igbo race!”
Here are findings made by JAMB during the investigation:
1. The QR code on Mmesoma’s published slip resulted a score of 249, not 362.
2. The 55019 sent her a score of 249 via her phone number.
3. The design of her JAMB slip is inconsistent with that used in 2023.
4. The centre name on Mmesoma’s published slip does not correlate with the original name of the exam centre which was changed from Thomas Chidoka Centre to Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre) in 2021.
The owner of the exam centre, Osita Chidoka, Former Minister of Aviation has indicated that he is ready to plead with JAMB to be lenient with Mmesoma due to her age if she comes clean. There has yet to be an official statement from Mmesoma regarding all these claims as she still insists on being in the right.
What exactly is going on? Is it the government against the masses once again or is the government actually in the right this time?
Your Fun Blogger,
Ije-AweleUwa Wisdom.
Let’s know your thoughts in the comments section.
