The House of Representatives has asked the Joint Admission And Matriculation Board (JAMB) to lift the three years ban on Ejikeme Mmesoma not to sit Unified Tartary Matriculation Examination (UTME) over alleged manipulation of her results in the examination this year.
The House also set up an Ad-hoc Committee chaired by Sada Soli (APC, Katsina) to investigate the alleged manipulation, JAMB facilities with a view to averting such a situation in the future and report back in three weeks.
The Green Chamber reached these decisions when it adopted a motion moved by Hon. Awaji-Inombek Abiante (PDP, Rivers) at plenary on Wednesday, calling on independent examiners to cross-check Mmesoma’s script to determine her score.
Moving the motion, Abiante stated that Ejikeme Mmesoma of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, Anambra State sat for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations and scored 362.
He said on July 2, JAMB, Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr. Fabian Benjamin made a public pronouncement accusing Miss Ejikeme Mmesoma of manipulating her UTME results that she actually scored 249 instead of the 362 as claimed.
“Further aware that Miss. Ejikeme Mmesoma came out to defend herself, that she actually printed the result from the JAMB portal and had been a brilliant child all through her Nursery and Tertiary education, coming first in all the Examinations she has been taken before the UTME, hence she posited that she is not capable of manipulating her UTME result.
“Cognizant of the fact that uploading or downloading result of examinations or polls electronically, in Nigeria, glitches can occur at any time, hence the need to establish the facts before any blames.
“Worried that Dr. Fabian Benjamin, JAMB Head of Public Affairs and Protocol alleged that some of the 2023 UTME Candidates are parading fake scores in order to get undue advantage from the public, hence the need to investigate the allegation,” the lawmaker added.