A Nigerian automobile manufacturer, Innoson Group has said the company will withdraw the N3 million scholarship it awarded to one Ejikeme Mmesoma celebrated for having an outstanding 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination result if the allegations of forgery levelled against her by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is found to be true.
This was revealed by the Head of Corporate Communications of the group, Cornel Osigwe in a Twitter post on Monday morning, where he claimed that the group had commenced an independent investigation on the issue between Ejikeme and the exam body, JAMB.
Osigwe added that if their investigation reveals that Ejikeme is not guilty as alleged, the group is willing to ensure the scholarship award would stand.
He wrote: “We're doing our independent investigation on the issue of manipulation, if we found that the girl willfully manipulated her result, we shall withdraw the scholarship, but if we observe she is innocent of the accusation, then the scholarship stands, whether she is the best or not.”
SaharaReporters on Sunday reported that the JAMB accused Ejikeme of doctoring her 2023 UTME result which had attracted a lot of praise to her.
Mmesoma had claimed to have 362 in the examination.
However, in a statement signed by its Head of Public Affairs and Press, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB vowed to withdraw the result which it described as inflated and declared the body’s readiness to prosecute the candidate.
JAMB’s statement reads, “The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has been drawn to several publications in both print and online media celebrating certain candidates for being high scorers in the 2023 UTME.
“The Board is constrained to set the records straight and wishes to state unequivocally that many of the results which many of these candidates are parading are fake. In many instances, some of these candidates had actually obtained far lower scores than they are claiming and had used some funny software packages to manipulate their results to deceive unsuspecting members of the public.
“The most pathetic of them all is the case of Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, who claimed to have scored 362 in the 2023 UTME and was awarded a N3m scholarship by Chief (Dr.) Innocent Chukwuma.
“She was even set to be honoured by the Anambra State Government when one of its top officials put a call through to JAMB to confirm her claim, only for the Board to reveal that Miss Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma had actually scored 249 and not the 362 she claimed.
“She had manipulated her UTME result to deceive the public to fraudulently obtain scholarships and other recognitions.”
It further said, “Her original result remains 249, as nothing can change that.
“With this her ignoble act, Miss Mmesoma would be prosecuted and her original result withdrawn. This is not all, as the Board would, in due course, investigate all candidates laying claims to higher scores than they actually obtained.
“Once discovered, such candidates’ original results would be withdrawn forthwith, and they would be handed over to relevant security agencies for prosecution.”
It also noted that one Atung Gerald in Kaduna, who claimed to have scored 380, “never obtained the 2023 UTME application documents, not to talk of sitting the examination”.
“The Board would, therefore, want to advise the public to always cross-check these claims by candidates with the Board before rushing to honour them with undeserving awards, as certain software has been created to fake their version of their results and put same out in the public space for fun, and this is what the sponsors of these candidates are using to defraud good-spirited Nigerians such as Dr. Innocent, the founder of Innoson Motors, who sincerely desires to celebrate academic excellence by investing in the education of a young Nigerian,” it said.