Mmesoma Confesses, Admits Scoring 249 Marks — not 362

By Tunde Eso 

The candidate at the centre of a UTME results forgery allegation, Mmesoma Ejikeme, has finally admitted to scoring 249 marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) but rejected blame for the mix-up that led to her claiming to have scored 362 marks.

She says the three-year ban imposed on her by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is "not fair".

The 19-year-old claims her "results notification" slip for the UTME showing a score of 362 out of 400 was printed from the JAMB results portal, but the board argues she is parading a forged result on a template it discontinued in 2021.

Her official score is 249.

On Tuesday, JAMB insisted that her result is "patently fake", saying it had withdrawn her result and consequently barred her from writing the examination for the next three years.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."