Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme’s father has denied plans to seek legal remedies after the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board (JAMB) accused her of faking the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Ejikeme Romanus denied media claims that the family had taken JAMB to court and demanded N20 billion for purported manipulation of facts.
According to reports, Mmesoma sought a restraining order on JAMB and any of its officials from providing any more comments on the suspected falsified results until further notice while seeking a court injunction.
However, in an interview with Ejesgist on Tuesday, Ejikeme stated that the family was not considering hiring a lawyer and would instead leave the case to God, whom he claims is the only person who can provide them justice.
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He stated that his daughter had been unusually bright since kindergarten, emphasising that associating such an individual to forgeries was sad.
“I’m a commercial motorcyclist, but I’m mostly a musician,” he says. We migrated from Oba to Nnewi three years ago. But my daughter went to Ogbunike Central School, where she topped her class till she transferred to Oba, where she still finished first.
“When we moved to Nnewi and had to transfer her to her current school, her teachers and classmates from Oba school called her, crying that her absence was affecting the school because she used to represent the school in various competitions.”
“The principal even called me and asked me to pay for my daughter’s transportation to and from Nnewi to attend her school.” But I turned down the offer. That’s how much people adored my kid as a result of her outstanding performance.
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“In the meantime, she takes no joy in her performance because it means nothing to her. Mmesoma has always been a hardworking and studious student who takes her academics seriously. She started to the current school in SS1 after finishing her junior WAEC in Oba. Her outcomes are visible to everyone. It’s a public institution.
“The 362 score she received was what she saw in the SMS sent to her by JAMB after submitting her code to the portal.” That’s the same score she’d been using for almost two months prior to the scandal.
Ejikeme challenged JAMB to quit defending itself and inform the entire world the truth, describing a purposeful delay in publishing the actual results of the highest scorer.
“I’m surprised that JAMB kept quiet all this time until they came up with another result,” he continued. But, as a father, I’ve realised that JAMB purposefully delayed releasing the claims in order to create something they could use to defend themselves.
“The new score they claim my kid received is not her result. It’s awful that the same people who were meant to give her an award for finishing first are instead tearing her down.
“All this time, my daughter has been crying, and we’ve been telling her that nothing is too difficult for God to do.” She is upset that not only was her outcome changed, but she is also being wrongly accused of something she did not commit.
Further more: 16-Year-Old Student Accused of Forgery Cries Out: ‘I’m Traumatized; I Printed the Result from the JAMB Portal’ (Video)”
“How can they accuse my daughter of such allegations when she is not a JAMB employee?” When journalists came to interview her, I asked them, “Does the person you’re interviewing appear fraudulent?” Only a moron could commit such a heinous crime in my opinion.
“My daughter studies so diligently that even if you ask her to go to bed late at night, she will insist on reading more.” She rarely sleeps since she wants to study Medicine and Surgery, especially during exams. So, after all the tension, someone will claim that her outcome was fabricated.
“On what we intend to do, there is nothing else we can do but insist that JAMB tell us the truth.” They should cease defending themselves and tell the truth to the entire world. Even if my daughter is required to take this exam multiple times, I am confident she will excel. She’s my child. She has never finished second in a class.
“Besides, my two girls and two boys are all brilliant.” If you want, you can go talk to their teachers. Just that, as I previously stated, we don’t make a fuss about it. The probe should be carried out by the Soludo panel as well. I’m not interested in hiring lawyers; let justice be served.
Mrs. Uchekwukwu Edum, Principal of Anglican Girls Secondary School (AGSS), Nnewi, where Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme studies, also spoke out, expressing surprise at the statement invalidating her score.
When the news of the alleged forgery came on Sunday, she stated the school was still awaiting the results of a thorough inquiry by the Department of State Services (DSS).
“We’ve been at DSS making statements and waiting for the investigation,” she explained. I was amazed that no one had heard from us, only for JAMB to issue a statement disparaging our pupil.
“All I can say is that we were in school at the time when they (students) were scratching and checking their results.” The first person had 295 points, the second had 265, and so on. We were still working on it when Mmesoma arrived with her own result, which was 362; we asked that she provide evidence, and when she did, we cheered with her.
“So, later we learned that there was someone (from another school) who got 360 and that she was the highest, so we had to contact the diocese’s education secretary.” Because our school is a mission school, we decided to contact the commissioner about this. So the commissioner contacted JAMB, who informed him that there was no such thing, causing misunderstanding number one.
