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• 3-year ban unfair –Student
From Ndubuisi Orji and Fred Ezeh, Abuja
House of Representatives has urged the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) to desist from any further action on the controversy surrounding alleged manipulation of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result by Mmesoma Ejikeme, pending the outcome of investigation by its ad-hoc committee.
The House, which resolved to set up an ad-hoc committee to probe the controversy surrounding the alleged UTME result manipulation, told JAMB to rescind the three years ban slammed on Ejikeme, pending the outcome of investigation.
The ad-hoc committee, when constituted, is also expected to probe the existence of special examination centres and report back to the House within three weeks for further legislative actions.
This followed the adoption of a motion by Awaji-Inombek Abiante, calling on the parliament to investigate the controversy between JAMB and Ejikeme over alleged manipulation of UTME result.
While result printout from JAMB indicated that Ejikeme scored 362 in the last UTME examination conducted by the former, the examination body said her score is 249 and also banned the student from participating in its examination for the next three years.
“I have watched painfully so sir, someone from JAMB ascribing to himself the powers to accuse, the powers to investigate and the power to proffer punishment, without giving opportunity for fair hearing.
“Mr. Speaker, I have only come because the person in question does not have the opportunity to sit here with us to be heard. She may not also have the opportunity to convoke press conferences like JAMB. This is the parliament. It is our responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves, especially when the person is a minor. I urge all concern to stand to protect the weak,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ejikeme has confirmed she once received a text message from JAMB, indicating that she scored 249 as against 362 that she claimed to had scored in the 2023 UTME.
She challenged JAMB’s insistence that the result she was parading was fake and accused the board of allocating to her the UTME result that was not hers.
But in a phone interview with Channels TV Sunrise Daily presenters, she admitted that there might be error somewhere but that was not her fault neither did she put the blame on JAMB.
Contrary to claims by JAMB that she sent several messages requesting her result, Mmesomma confirmed that only SMS she sent to JAMB was through its support system.
When asked if she got any feedback, she said: “They (JAMB) didn’t reply. If they checked their support system, they will see that I sent a text message that they didn’t reply.”
On the claim that she used an Airtel line, Mmesoma replied: “Yes” but added it was not through USSD code.
“The one I checked through the USSD code is the one of 360 that I saw,” she explained.
Responding to claim that the feedback from JAMB showed her score as 249, she agreed. “Yes,” she said. “After all was said and done, I now saw that I got 249. I sent them a text message to know what really happened — the JAMB Support System. If they go to their system, they will see it there.”
She described the three years ban slammed on her by JAMB as unfair, stating that whatever error that might has been noticed was not her fault.
