TheCable

Osita Chidoka, former minister of aviation, says he will plead for leniency on behalf of Ejikeme Mmesoma if she comes clean on her UTME result. 

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) had said the student manipulated her result to “deceive the public to fraudulently obtain a scholarship and other recognitions”.

The board also said the student “actually got 249 in the exam and not 362” as widely assumed.

Amid the controversy, the exam body withdrew her result and suspended her from partaking in UTME for the next three years.

Mmesoma initially dismissed the forgery allegation but later admitted that JAMB actually notified her that she got 249 in the exam.

The Anambra pupil took the exam at Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre) owned by Chidoka.

Addressing the issue in a Twitter thread on Wednesday, the ex-minister said he became suspicious immediately he saw Mmesoma’s result due to some “discrepancies”.

“I observed two significant red flags when I saw her result online. First, since 2021, the JAMB portal stopped referring to our center as Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development. The correct name on the JAMB portal and the Main Examination Slip is Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Center for Human Development),” he wrote.

“Due to the difference in our CAC registration details, JAMB insisted we change to Nkemefuna Foundation with Thomas Chidoka in a bracket as an identifier. We implemented the name change in 2021. As is to be expected, the Main Examination Slip bore the core name, Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre), but the result she presented had just Thomas Chidoka Centre without the prefix, Nkemefuna Foundation. This error raised my suspicion about the genuineness of the presented result.

“The second red flag was the result template. A cursory review of some of those who took the last examination at our center showed a different result slip template with the candidate’s passport picture, JAMB watermarks, and no mention of the name of the examination center.

“I gave the young Nmesoma the benefit of the doubt and waited to see if she would explain how she got the result, which is obviously not the approved JAMB result template used in 2023. Without that explanation, I knew it was a fake result.

“Nmesoma should come clean and explain how she got that result and who led her down that path. If she does that, I will lend my voice to beg JAMB to note her age and show more leniency. A child her age deserves a second chance after she shows remorse and demonstrates that she has learnt the value of integrity.”

Chidoka said the incident reflects “the general level of distrust in our national institutions”.