Shame of Mmesoma’s UTME result forgery and anti-EU protesters -By Azuka Onwuka

Last week, two prominent embarrassing issues occurred in Nigeria. One was the confession of Mmesoma Ejikeme, the purported highest scorer in the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, that she altered her score from 249 to 362. The second was the protest of some supporters of President Bola Tinubu at the European Union secretariat in Abuja over the report of the organisation on the 2023 general elections.

Nineteen-year-old Mmesoma had been reported to be the highest scorer in the 2023 UTME, which is one of the examinations used to admit students into institutions of higher learning in Nigeria. Her score, which came out in May, showed that she had 98 in English, 94 in biology, 89 in physics, and 81 in chemistry. She was celebrated nationally. Nigeria’s first indigenous auto manufacturer, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited, led by its founder, Innocent Chukwuma, hosted the girl, her parents and school principal, and presented a university scholarship of N3m to her.

Between May and July, she reigned as the highest scorer in the 2023 UTME until JAMB issued a statement on July 4, 2023, stating that she was not the highest scorer but a fraud who changed her 249 score to 362. JAMB banned her from participating in the exam for the next three years. The nation was shocked at the revelation. JAMB followed up its statement with TV interviews, explaining in detail why the result was fake. JAMB said that the result sheet sample paraded by Mmesoma was last used in 2021. When scanned, the QR code on the result sheet showed a different name: the name of the person who owned the result sheet that was used for the alteration. It also showed the log of the communication between Mmesoma’s phone with its portal. Many saw that JAMB’s case sounded logical and factual.

In response, Mmesoma published a video in which she explained that she did not forge her result. She said that she got her result from the JAMB portal. She recounted the processes that had been taken on the matter, wondering why JAMB had not waited for the Department of State Services to complete its investigation before pronouncing her guilty.

Information and documents emerged showing that she had taken the first position in her examinations from her primary school. Many saw her as a victim of the usual carelessness and tackiness that bedevil government agencies. Such a young, intelligent girl from a poor family would have no reason to forge her result, many argued. Even if she did not actually score 362, many believed that perhaps there was a “glitch” on JAMB’s website which initially gave her that 362 but later reverted to the current 249. Some people said that they had had such an experience with JAMB in the past, whereby they received a score initially but later got another score from the same JAMB.

Consequently, many Nigerians called for an independent investigation into the matter. Given that JAMB was a party in the case, they argued that JAMB cannot be the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in its own case. The House of Representatives debated the issue and set up a committee to look into it.

However, over the weekend, the committee set up by the Anambra State Government to investigate the case released its report stating that Mmesoma had confessed to altering her 249 score to 362. It was a blow to many. Many of those defending her felt embarrassed that a person they thought was an innocent child being victimised by a giant could perpetrate such a fraud.

What could have made her do such a thing? How could she have believed that she would not be found out? How did she expect to gain admission into a university with a fake result?

Even though JAMB was proved right, the matter also left a stain on the examination body. Where was JAMB since May when Mmesoma carried on as the highest scorer in the 2023 UTME? The lame argument of JAMB is that it does not respond to arguments about who the highest scorer in its exam is except when a direct request is made to it. JAMB said that it only responded to Anambra State when the state wanted to honour Mmesoma and sent a request to it.

Such red tapism gave rise to this embarrassing situation. JAMB is not a law court that should wait for a case to be brought before it before issuing a judgment. JAMB is an agency of government like most other agencies. The rational, logical and sensible thing to do is that within a week of announcing the results of its annual exam, it should publish the list of perhaps its top 100 or 1,000 best candidates on its website or via a press release or an advertisement. That list should contain the name of each candidate, score, age, school, state of residence, state of origin, choice of course, and university choice.

This will make each secondary school student to be inspired to make JAMB’s Top 100. Each school and state will want to produce the top student or most students on the list. Organisations will compete to reward those on the list. The competition in education will increase. People can easily check the schools which demand high school fees against the number of their students on the JAMB’s Top 100 list, to decide if a good school is determined by the amount paid.

What exists currently is that after JAMB has released its results, schools will start fighting over themselves to publish the list of top performers they produced. Nobody can verify these claims because there is no official publication from JAMB on that.

But given what we know about the Nigerian government and its agencies regarding issues of excellence, this idea will most likely never be implemented as long as whoever is the head of JAMB believes that students from his state or zone may not appear much on such a Top 100 or Top 1,000 list. It is one key reason Nigeria hates to celebrate excellence and continues to underperform.

Because of this anachronistic and retroactive attitude of JAMB, the scandal over this year’s UTME results denied the true top scorer, Kamsiyochukwu Umeh – who scored 360 – the opportunity to be properly celebrated.

The second source of embarrassment last week was the protest of some supporters of the current administration at the EU secretariat. Watching them with their placards and speeches in front of the EU office in Abuja, one could only feel ashamed. The EU, like any observer group, presented its report on the 2023 general elections, stating statistics, pointing out flaws, giving commendations and proffering recommendations.

After an election, observer groups give their report. Their report is not expected to whitewash the election. One is at a loss what the protest of this group against the EU’s report was all about except an attempt to intimidate and silence any voice that is not singing the praises of the elections and the administration. When the EU was giving financial support to the Independent National Electoral Commission, such a group did not protest. There have been other observer groups like YIAGA Africa which raised similar issues in their election reports like the EU did. The key reason the EU report seems to anger many APC members is that the body is a foreign one, whose voice would carry much weight outside Nigeria. The other reason is that the EU presented its report to the presidential election tribunal.

The APC should curb its tendency to silence opposition voices. The party was in the opposition for many years and should know what it means to respect opposing views in a democracy.

Twitter: @BrandAzuka