The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board said it has
handed over a 19-year-old candidate in the 2021/2022 Unified Tertiary and
Matriculation Examination to the police for investigation over what it
described as “result tampering.”
According to the board’s Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who
briefed journalists at JAMB’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday, the candidate,
Chinedu John, had claimed he scored 380 in the examination conducted in June
was surprised to receive 265 from the board after the results were released.
He said following alleged “alteration” of the UTME score,
the candidate’s father, John Ifenkpam, approached an Enugu-based lawyer,
Ikeazor Akaiwe, who wrote to JAMB for another opportunity for the boy to retake
the examination and demanded N1 billion as damages.
According to Oloyede, the lawyer said the N1 billion was to cover for the physical and emotional trauma the boy had been through from being offered “two separate scores.”
The candidate was said to have claimed that his UTME scores
from 2019 till 2021 had been “altered” by the board, thereby denying him the
opportunity to study his desired course – medicine.
On Friday, the candidate, his father and lawyers travelled
to Abuja from Enugu state following an invitation from the management of the
board led by the Oloyede.
Initially, the boy was given few minutes to “come clean” in
a closed session with his father and lawyers about the results he was parading
but insisted that his original score from the examination was 380.
After going back and forth, the board tendered evidence to
counter the claim by John and his legal representatives.
At the Friday meeting, documentary evidence tendered by the
board showed that John actually scored 265 and not the 380 he had claimed.
Oloyede accused the candidate of alteration, adding that he
will be handed over to the police for investigation and subsequently
prosecuted.
The registrar said John was among 11 eleven other candidates
who allegedly forged their results that the board would prosecute.
He said the original result issued to him would be withdrawn
pending investigation.
Oloyede said, “We have 11 of them who tampered with their
results. Two of them are already being prosecuted. The remaining ones we are
going to withdraw their results and prosecute them. The main purpose is to
sanitise the system, including our own staff.
“There was never any communication of 380 with this boy.
Because this boy has accused JAMB, we are going to withhold his result until
the investigation is concluded. We are going to request that our interactions
with him be subjected to the public.”
His lawyer, Ikeazor, appealed to the board to instead give
room for further investigation.
“I will not stand against investigation. Let there be
investigation but what I will not agree to is to prejudge him,” he said.
Earlier, John had said, “The result I have been receiving is
not the result I am entitled to. I wrote the first JAMB in 2019.
“The first time, they sent 328 and later, I saw 278 when I
checked it. I printed it. I couldn’t meet up for admission that year. I wanted
to study medicine and surgery at the University of Ibadan.
“In 2020, the same thing happened. I scored 343, but by the
time I went to the portal to print, I saw 306. I used the 306 and it gave me
admission in UI. But because I didn’t have Further Mathematics, I had to
forfeit it.
“I decided to leave Medicine and Surgery for them in 2021 so
I picked Petroleum Engineering. In 2021, JAMB issued me two results. I saw 380
the first time I checked and then the second time, I saw 265.”
But the board’s Public Relations Officer, Fabian Benjamin,
claimed that the candidate confessed to the crime.
He said “The candidate who was paraded for forging the
Board’s result has confessed after the Board discovered that he saved his
sister’s number on his phone as 55019 and used the phone to send the fake
result to his phone.
“When he sends such results, they come as 55019.
“He pleaded for mercy that he had to do that when the result
he got was not up to what could give him his desired programme.”
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