Controversy over UTME Score: JAMB has questions to answer, says NUJ scribe

The raging controversy over the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) score of a teenager, Ejikeme Mmesoma has assumed another dimension as the Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, for South East (Zone C), Comrade Eze Adiuku has said that the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has questions to answer.

Reacting to the allegation that Ms Ejikeme forged her UTME result score, Comrade Adiuku while speaking with our correspondent said that JAMB did not handle the matter well.

“I have read reports in the media about what I will describe as unnecessary back and forth between the Examination body, JAMB and the teenager over the alleged forgery by the young girl.

“What I do not understand is why it took JAMB about two months to realize that the teenager forged her result.

“I understand JAMB released the results of the 2023 UTME around first week of May this year.

“Does it mean that JAMB as a body does not publish it’s official record of the highest scoring candidate after the results must have been released?

“With the media reports about the teenager who scored the highest and the attention it drew for people and organisations like Innoson Motors, one had expected JAMB to counter this before it becomes an unnecessary controversy.

“I would not want to apportion blames to either JAMB or the teenager, but this does not portray us in good light as a nation.

“Does it mean this girl could have really gained admission into a tertiary institution with that score? What if the score was not touted as the highest for this year’s UTME, could she not have gotten away with it?

“Is it not possible that there are many of such official lacunas that desperate and fraudulent persons can take advantage of to gain admission into the tertiary institutions?

“This is a lesson to JAMB and other institutions in the country. As a nation, we should not continue to prove that we are not only the poverty capital of the world but shamelessly, that we have corruption encraved in our DNA”.