The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has disclosed that Mmesoma Ejikeme, the teenage student embroiled in a forgery scandal was not convicted.
JAMB registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede made this known while briefing stakeholders about the organisation’s activities for the year 2024.
He said that Mmesoma is lucky to not have been jailed for forging her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result, because others who committed same crime were sentenced.
According to him, a student who committed a similar offence in Ondo state was sentenced to one year jail term, while about 30 others were arrested for a similar crime during the 2024 UTME.
Oloyede 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.
“She 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.”
Recall that Mmesoma, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, who claimed to have gotten the highest score in JAMB 2023, was alleged to have fraudulently manipulated her UTME score from 249 to 362, thereby falsely parading herself as UTME top scorer.
The 19-year-old girl was investigated by a panel of the House of Representatives, during which she tendered an apology to the exam body and pleaded for leniency.