A young girl, Mmesoma Ejikeme, has become a sensation on the internet, overnight, for the very wrong reason, yet a confusing circumstance.
Indeed, when a man is sinking, everything around him that he could hold will go down the sink with him.
This appears to be Nigeria’s case and now the whole world will see again how bad its education system had become.
Nigerians were shocked few days ago, when an issue of falsified 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result filtered in.
Could this be another deadness of Nigeria’s system manifesting in its education sector?
Ears tingled, not because Nigeria has not had such issues of results forgery before. In fact, result forgery had ‘rained’ in high places of law making in the past.
But this time, the horror was the age of the girl, Mmesoma Ejikeme, who is standing on the gallows. Her looks do not appear like one that could falsify result.
Different stories are coming in, with the examination body insisting that the document is not a true copy.
Mmesoma Ejikeme/JAMB’s Story
The young girl claims that she printed the result from JAMB’s portal, but said that the QR code would give you a different name when you scan it with your phone.
This additional information is something that makes the entire thing look complicated and needing investigation.
After JAMB accused her of forgery, she came to the internet with a video saying; “it was me”.
But then this video drew sympathy and emotions are pouring in for her innocence and innocent looks.
She does not look like one that could forge a result, people say.
But there are a few things to think about, even when we know that one can be part of a crime he or she knows nothing about.
What To Expect From DSS
After she took up the issue, visiting the Education Ministry, she was handed over to the Department of State Services (DSS) by the commissioner in the state.
In the video of the young girl trending online, she said the DSS questioned her and took her statement.
One will naturally expect that the DSS was quick enough to make a printout of her result as an evidence before she left their office.
For us, investigating this issue is very easy.
If the result the DSS supposedly printed is same with what she has, then JAMB will have to move away from a place of defence to a place of explanation.
Nigerians will want to know what happened.
However, if the DSS does not act fact, JAMB can make magic happen overnight on its portal to save its face.
No one really likes to apologise for a blunder. At least not a JAMB roped with a report of a strange snake swallowing huge sum of money some years back.
Let’s continue on this mind blowing situation we have in our hands.
DSS must be smart enough to know that it should print that result by itself.
But if the DSS failed to do so, the peril will come hurting everyone.
Is There A Possibility Of Forgery
JAMB says the new result printout a candidate can get from its portal is not forgeable. Well, that is a debate for another day.
But if it is not possible, a fraudulent person may quickly jump on Google to search for JAMB results and quickly grab one to manipulate.
There is a JABM result online that looks like the one she was holding in the video.
See image below.
This document above, anyone can manipulate if he or she knows how to, but the bar code when scanned will surely carry a different name.
As a result of this simple common sense knowledge, JAMB insists that the result she was holding could not have been printed in its portal in this age and time.
According to the board, it stopped using that result years ago.
Now, where is the printed result coming from?
Is it possible that someone who was aware of the money Innoson had promised, thought out a way to get the money? The girl may not be aware.
There is so much work to be done right now. We are all sitting at the edges of our seats waiting on security agencies to unravel the situation we have in our hands.
Also Read: UTME Fraud: Innoson Demands For Proper Investigation
But is there a silver lining for the young girl?
Blessing In Disguise
Except a court finds her guilty of forgery, there could be a blessing in all of this for Mmesoma Ejikeme.
She has received visibility online, and right here, as I write, I know that every visibility, whether for good or for bad, is something amazing if properly milked.
Indeed, Mmesoma Ejikeme is in for a great time. However, it also comes with the tendency of a fraud that would hang a jail term on her as the the early days of her adulthood dawn.
There is this confusion in the mind of everyone right now.
We only will hope that this is not another ‘Igede’ dance that is dead on arrival.
