The ongoing attention on the result falsification saga between Miss Ejike Mmesoma, who claims to be the highest JAMB scorer for the 2023 University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) has attracted mixed reactions from all and sundry.
Although the concerned candidate claims she is traumatised by the allegation that she forged an upgraded result, the Joint Admission Examination and Matriculation Council (JAMB) has explained that the process, format and procedure Mmesoma presented as evidence of her result’s credibility is outdated and falsified.
According to the Acting Director of Public Affairs and Protocol of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, the format of the result she presented in public was last used in 2021, and the QR code on her slip still needs to return her details as expected.
A situation like Mmesoma’s is not the first incidence of result falsification with JAMB result dissemination. On August 16, 2019, Nigerian Tribune reported a case of result falsification by one Unekwe Kenechukwu Kingsley, who upgraded his results from 201 to 269 but was investigated and prosecuted after his parents petitioned JAMB. In 2021, JAMB also handed to the police, after proper investigation, 19-year-old Chinedu John, who also claimed he scored 380 instead of 265, which the examination body declared.
Although some of these cases have been proven and prosecuted, many other unreported cases of errors in JAMB results show that the examination board (JAMB) needs to improve its result systems.
According to the Punch Newspaper report on 26th July 2021, Sukanmi revealed that some of his friends got multiple results when they checked using the USSD code. According to Sukanmi, they got different results when they used the USSD code 55019 to check the results. They had other candidates’ results sent to them. I don’t understand JAMB; they cannot do little things correctly with all the money they make from students.
Sukanmi’s account is similar to what JAMB spokesperson Fabian Benjamin explained as the process through which Mmesoma accessed her result before she got around the falsification.
Dr Benjamin explains, “…we have the 55019, our USSD code. We use that 55019 to communicate with candidates during registration, examination and release of results.
“Immediately after this result was released, she checked her result; instead of sending “RESULT TO 55019, she sent a message “Post UTME to 55019, but the machine now sent her results because the phone number she is using is a unique identifier, so it sent her result which was 249.
“She now doctored that result – because that one is a text message, it’s easy to doctor. So she doctored the results, put the marks the way she wanted and sent them back to 55019, so the code also returned her original results.
“So if you look at the communication, anybody can investigate. All you need to do is pick up her (Mmesoma’s) Airtel phone number and ask the company to give you the information. At each point, she kept sending the message, and it kept returning her results of 249 almost four times.
“So, she went outside the database to obtain that slip, but unfortunately, her sponsors or her managers didn’t know that there are security devices attached to each slip that is printed, and the QR code is one of them. There are about seventeen of them which I wouldn’t want to mention on air.”
Such stories like that of Sukanmi and his friends show that JAMB’s systems are not completely protected from errors, which must be addressed.
With the recent incident with Mmesoma’s result, some Nigerians also took to Twitter to reveal that there is indeed a problem that needs to be fixed with JAMB’s result system.
A Twitter user who claimed to have been a victim of UTME score error, @AdrewczOnyia, wrote, “It may interest Nigerians that JAMB made an error in my result when I wrote my JAMB almost 8 years ago… The first result they sent me had a very different score from what they sent later, with no explanation. And I wasn’t the only one it happened to that year.”
Another person, @Iam_jogz, tweeted, “This happened to me too, that was in 2009. My score changed as well. They said there was an error in the initially released results; it wasn’t the original thing. They just cooked up a story then, sha. JAMB is a body of glitches; they should be held responsible for this girl’s case.”
@Ideniyor, whose admission was nearly affected by the UTME errors, wrote, “I remember when I wrote JAMB, my results came out as 101. I checked two or three times, and it was still 101. One day, I was sent to check someone’s result at the JAMB office. I decided to check my own too, and the score had changed significantly. I almost missed admission to OAU that year. I was already on the merit list, yet I was at home depressed unknowingly. I barely made the admission with less than a week before admission closed.”
“When I wrote JAMB in 2009, my JAMB result changed from 201 to 223 when I checked for the second time. JAMB is guilty of this act on a daily basis,” @ejykgodson recounted.
@ose_richard tweeted, “This stupid thing happened to me. JAMB gave me a score that I knew, even if I didn’t study, I wouldn’t get it. I laughed but then changed it to 209. I gave up. JAMB is full of errors.
Although these claims may not have been officially reported by the individuals who have shared their experiences, it shows a level of eroded trust in the examination body.
JAMB needs to keep abreast of likely technological sabotage that can attack its systems, such as a prank app like Jambfun-Fake Jamb, which can generate a fake JAMB result format similar to what JAMB used in 2021.
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