Ejikeme Mmesoma, a student from Anglican Girls Secondary School in Nnewi, Anambra state, has issued an apology to the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) regarding the alleged forgery of her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result.
On Wednesday, Mmesoma appeared before a special committee of the House of Representatives that was investigating the matter, alongside Ishaq Oloyede, the JAMB registrar, and other top directors from the board.
During her appearance, Mmesoma humbly requested leniency, asking for the ban imposed on her to be lifted. She expressed deep regret, saying, “I feel a profound sense of pain for letting you down.”
Prior to her appearance before the House ad hoc committee, an Anambra committee was assigned to investigate the controversy, and it reported that the candidate had confessed to falsifying her results.
In May of the same year, Mmesoma gained significant attention when it was claimed that she had scored 362 in the 2023 UTME, though JAMB did not officially declare her as the overall best candidate. Despite this, she received widespread celebration.
In response to the controversy, Innocent Chukwuma, an automobile businessman, awarded her a scholarship worth N3 million.
However, JAMB later clarified that Mmesoma’s actual score was 249, not 362, and accused her of fabricating the results to deceive the public. As a result, a panel was appointed to investigate the matter further.
The panel of inquiry prescribed that Mmesoma should issue a written apology to JAMB, Anglican Girls Secondary School, and the Anambra state government as part of the resolution.
