With the raging controversy occassioned by the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result manipulation saga involving the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and a 19-year-old candidate, Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme, who claimed to be the highest scorer for 2023, the Economic Confidential Magazine has dug up the names of top scorers in the placement examination in the last 10 years.
LEADERSHIP reports that JAMB had on Sunday accused Mmesoma of falsifying her 2023 UTME result to gain undue favour from the public.
Incidentally, while Mmesoma, who allegedly parades herself as the top scorer, resides in Anambra State, the real 2023 top JAMB scorer according to the Board, Umeh Nkechinyere, with an aggregate score of 360, hails from the same State.
Meanwhile, in its assessment of JAMB results between 2013 and 2022, the Economic Confidential Magazine has listed 56 UTME candidates in the last 10 years who scored an average of 290 and above.
In choosing an average of five best candidates in a year, the economic intelligence magazine explained that some of the candidates scored the same marks and they were, therefore, tied on the same position between first to fifth positions.
Of the 56 highest scorers in 10 years, 16 students scored between 290-339, while 40 candidates scored between 340-363.
In 2013 and 2014, no candidate scored 300, as the highest mark in both years was 299.
Economic Confidential further discovered that only four candidates scored highest marks above 360 in 10 years.
They were Anambra State born Maduafokwa Agnes, who emerged as the best UTME candidate by scoring 365 in 2020. She was followed by an indigene of Borno State, Galadima Zakari, who was the best overall candidate at the 2018 UTME by scoring 364.
The third position in 10 years went to another indigene of Anambra State, Master David Okwuchukwu Nwobi, who was second top scoring candidate in 2020 with 363 marks. With 362, Adebayo Eyimofe, an indigene of Ekiti State, who emerged as the candidate with the best UTME score in 2022 was the fourth highest scorer in 10 years.
The Economic Confidential discovered that out of the 56 best candidates, 71% were male students while 29% were female students.
