The JAMB score issue

LAST week, the eight-man panel set up by Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State to investigate the alleged forgery of the result of a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) by a candidate, Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme, returned a guilty verdict, indicting her for manipulating her examination result. It consequently asked her to tender an unreserved written apology to the examining body and to undergo psychological counseling and therapy. In the same vein, the candidate’s father, Mr. Romanus Ejikeme, who had earlier risen in her defence, apologised to Nigerians and the board, saying he had been misled by his daughter, who had all along claimed to have downloaded her forged score of scored 362/400 as against her authentic score of 249 in the JAMB record from the board’s website.

The report read in part: “JAMB disclosed that the candidate was well informed of her correct score. Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma had sent a request to JAMB with a different registration number showing a UTME result of the aggregate score of 362, with English: 98, Physics: 89, Biology: 94, and Chemistry: 81. The results she sent differed substantially from the standard JAMB format where she got an appropriate rebuttal stating her real score of 249. Besides, several red flags were also highlighted by JAMB officials showing different date of birth, different registration number, and notification of results template that has been discarded since 2021, amongst others. It was also evident that even the centre name, Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development as it was known before now) used for the examination was also manipulated where the candidate used the old name of the centre (Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development) in her own manipulated result sheet. In Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma’s submission, she admitted in the presence of her principal, and the Education Secretary that the narration by the JAMB officials was a true and correct description of what transpired. She also admitted to having given a manipulated result by herself unaided, using the same phone Airtel Number. According to her, she proceeded to the cybercafe (Prisca Global Computers, Uruagu, Nnewi) where she printed the results she had manipulated.”

It is regrettable that Nigerians and relevant authorities have invested enormous time and attention in the past weeks on the needless issue of what is the appropriate score for Mmesoma, who claimed to have printed a score of 362 from the JAMB server through a business centre and was awarded a scholarship and cash reward on account of the high score claimed. JAMB thereafter disputed her claims, suggesting that she had manipulated the score as she scored only 249 in its own record, going ahead to bar her from JAMB examinations for three years. We are intrigued by the fact that there is nothing that cannot be bastardised by the Nigerian system and its elite given that something that should not be an issue is allowed to degenerate into unnecessary disputation.

Pray, which kind of elite system relies on the publishing of scores for examinations on the internet by candidates for consideration for awards when the examining bodies are still existing and functional? And what kind of examination body would allow the public to depend on online publication of scores by candidates for the purpose of comparing scores? Even if JAMB had to release the results of the last examinations piecemeal based on the different dates that candidates sat the examinations, the board surely had the complete results for the examinations at the end of the examination period and it should have been its duty to inform the public about the range of performance for the year, including letting the public know about the best performers in the examinations.In any case, printing the results of JAMB examinations is only for the candidates to have an idea of their score and nothing more than that. The implication is that all the idea of manipulation of scores at the point of printing does not serve any purpose given that candidates do not use the printed results to seek admissions as results are directly forwarded to the admitting institutions by the Board.

This would suggest that there is no immediate benefit for anybody who manipulates scores at the point of printing beyond the purpose of amusing himself/herself, making it odd that JAMB and some other concerned governments and authorities would be setting up investigating committees on the issue while the board would also be making official public pronouncements on it. In the end, this saga shows that there is nothing that cannot be politicised in the country given that people have the penchant to chase shadows. We do not think that this issue deserves all the attention devoted to it at all levels as there is nothing to the results printed at business centres for the purpose of JAMB examinations. Nobody should rely on them for any official purpose and they should therefore not attract any attention.

The problem is with the reliance by Nigerians on results posted online by candidates for comparison and the purpose of awards. The proper thing is for the list of the best performers to be made available by the examination body. The situation should change and the right things done henceforth.