MMESOMAGATE: BEYOND THE GREED FOR SOCIAL APPLAUSE

It is no longer news that Ejikeme Mmesoma admitted to manipulating her Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination {UTME} score in the report of the committee set up by Anambra State Government and addressed to the Governor Charles Soludo, and that his father Romanus Ejikeme is said to have tendered an unreserved apology to the management of Joint Admission Matriculation Board {JAMB}, after he claimed that his daughter Mmesoma misled him. This is a shameless display of juvenile audacity, fanning from aerial years of institutional neglect and disregard for the moral folkways, mores and norms within the family circle and the society. It baffles the moral code of humanity to think for once that Mmesoma was adamant about the repercussion of her claim in a video that went viral and exposed her one-sided greed for social relevance on national television and across the globe. She was not getting the right empathy from some of her online tribesmen who emboldened her dubious claim with tribal slurs and unfounded Igbo victimization. And while the parents of Mmesoma might have enjoyed the greatness and respect that comes with her pyrrhic victory for some moments after she announced her falsified JAMB score of 362 from 249. Her untamed morality calls for questioning and reference for a society that is fuelled with teenagers that are more concerned with instant success rather than hard work, tenacity of purpose and rules of engagement for a successful moral lifestyle, writes Fakunle Sheriff Ekundayo.

The social media in Nigeria was thrown into moral chaos and ethnic vituperations after a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School Uruagu Nnewi, from Enugu State was banned for three years by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board {JAMB} after the examination body claimed that the 19-year-old Mmesoma falsified her result.

This was revealed immediately after the Anambra State Government had gone to verify her result from the examination body.

Mmesoma had complained to the State Government that she scored 362 in her Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination {UTME}, above Nkechiyere Umeh from Anambra State who was declared the highest score of 360 by JAMB. Subsequently, Mmesoma was awarded a scholarship by an indigenous car manufacturing giant in Nigeria; Innoson, with other private agencies and philanthropists ready to award Ejike  Mmesoma for her brilliant feat at the annual national examination body.

Earlier before her admission of falsifying the JAMB result, Mmesoma had been brazen with her UTME Score in a recent online video that was posted on the timeline of a journalist; Charles Ogbu, where it had one hundred and five thousand likes, one thousand and eight hundred comments, and ninety-two thousand shares as at the time of this article. There she expressed surprise that the result she printed from the JAMB portal was termed fake by the examination body. In addition, Mmessoma claimed she was traumatized by the accusation from JAMB, and went on to describe herself as a brilliant student who was not capable of doing what she was accused of by JAMB.

In her words: “I am the owner of this result, I went to the JAMB portal to print this result and this is what they gave me. This is the result here. This is my aggregate, 362. This is exactly how I downloaded it from that site. So they {JAMB} now saying I forged my result is what I don’t know, and I’m traumatised that they accused me of forging my own result.

“I am not capable of forging results, this is the evidence. The QR code on the result was scanned and it showed another name, a Yoruba name, Omotola Afolabi, 138, they checked again and the person scored 238, meaning there is a problem somewhere.”

Mmesoma said she was at the office of Anambra Commissioner of Education with her school Principal and the Education Secretary recently. “We showed this result to the Commissioner of Education, both this one and the SMS they sent to me. So she snapped it and sent to the JAMB officials. They called back, saying I forged it myself, that the JAMB office doesn’t have a record of this.

“They called the DSS over to come to her office. The DSS took us to their office and we made our statement there. The DSS said they would contact us later, that they are going to investigate this result to know where it came from.

“Instead of them {JAMB} to wait for the investigation to be over, they posted that I forged without confirming. I’m really sad about it.” She stated. 

Her audacious reactions from the video were consequent upon the statement by the board spokesman, Fabian Benjamin who described the result paraded by Mmesomma as ‘patently fake’. The board through Mr Fabian Benjamin announced that: “In the meantime, the management of the board after considering the weighty infraction committed by Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma in line with its established procedures has withdrawn her 2023 UTME result.” The JAMB statement said. “It has also barred her from sitting for the board’s examination for the next three years.”

The statement from the board’s spokesperson had sparked public outcry, with many calling on JAMB to stop victimizing the 19-year-old Mmesoma which many described as a brilliant innocent teenager. Some were of the opinion the error could have emanated from JAMB, and that the girl was innocent of the allegations.

Besides this was a sectional agitation by some from Eastern Nigeria who described the incident as Igbo victimization. Their condescending vituperations had encouraged a significant number of online users to use disparaging comments on the national institution; JAMB.

In an unguarded attempt to chase clout and draw sympathy to Ejikeme Mmesoma, Gaius Chibueze in his online tweet posited that his company and a social movement; ‘Voice of the East’ were ready to offer Mmesoma a 100% scholarship to study in the UK, Canada, and the United States of America. He warned JAMB to desist from what he termed ‘unprofessional behaviour’. “This is not just an attack on her person, but the entire Igbo race!” he tweeted.

Bridget Okanu, an online user in her comment said she believed Ejikeme Mmesoma was innocent, adding that JAMB ‘messed up’ her son’s result that made her cry bitterly.

Benjamin Achi in his comment described the incident as unfortunate and blamed the accusation on Mmesoma as a product of a dysfunctional society that has enormous rot in the system.

Their condemnation of JAMB’s three-year ban on Ejikeme Mmesoma was attributed to the perceived notion that justice was never served truthfully in Nigeria. This was the position of another social media user with an account name on Facebook; ‘RealLove Nneka’;  As if anybody has ever gotten justice in Nigeria. JAMB announced another Igbo lady to cover up their original plan.”

The smokescreen generated by the emotional sympathy for Mmesoma by a large group of online users was put to the test after JAMB through its spokesperson Mr Fabian declared that the result slip she presented was an old result format, which was used by a previous candidate to sue the exam body. He said JAMB changed the result format because it was easy for candidates to forge their results.

Also, Osita Chidoka, owner of the Computer Based Centre at Obosi where Nmesoma had gone to take her test, asserted that the following on her result sheet: The centre is no longer addressed as Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development on the JAMB portal since 2021. He said that the correct name on the JAMB portal and main examination slip is Nkemefuna Foundation {Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development} and that the change of name had been implemented since 2021. The second proof was the different result slip template with the candidate’s passport picture, JAMB watermarks, and no mention of the name of the examination centre.

According to Chidoka who commended JAMB for defending the body’s integrity said: “They shared the USSD communication between Mmesoma’s phone and their servers with timestamps. Mr Fabian Benjamin, the JAMB spokesperson did a yeoman’s job in explaining how the system works and the security of their result portal. He even asked anyone who cares to crosscheck with AIRTEL, the network provider of Mmesoma’s phone. Their transparency was compelling and disharming.”

Chidoka who said he was impressed by the swift reaction of JAMB praised the examination body Registrar Professor Oloyede.  Chidoka further added that; “Professor Oloyede issued statements based on facts and defended the integrity of a foremost Nigerian institution whose failure would have had a catastrophic effect on Nigeria’s educational and CBT systems. I was impressed. JAMB’s reaction and responsiveness should be made a minimum benchmark for government agencies. Our universities should write case studies of this saga so other institutions can learn how to navigate social media and information management in the face of unrelenting attacks.”

Also based on the findings of the independent panel pointed out the difference in the date of birth and registration number showing on Mmesoma’s fake result, which was different from what was in JAMB’s portal.

It was also declared that a tweet via the official Twitter handle of JAMB pointed out the fact that Mmesoma is 19 years old as against the narrative which stipulated that she was 16 years old.

The independent panel still in its submission said Ejikeme Mmesoma admitted to the fact that she manipulated the result herself.

Furthermore, the investigative panel set up by the Anambra State Government in the eight paged report  “submitted after its finding discovered that the suspect changed her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination {UTME} result after she openly confessed to doing so,” reports Adepoju Omoniyi Rector on his Facebook page.

The committee according to the information gathered recommended that Ejikeme Mmesoma tendered an unreserved apology to JAMB and that she should undergo therapy.

The father of the 19-year-old Mmesoma while tendering the apology on national television said his daughter lied to him initially, a confession that lefts more moral loopholes in the open for critical analyses.

To begin with, the moral justification for social relevance among the younger generation is fraught with parental negligence towards paying close attention to their wards’ formative behaviour. It is easier to suggest after the findings that there was little effort on the part of the father to have instilled a strong moral code in the daughter long before now, especially on the basic principles and benefit of speaking the truth. This should be the foundational steps in the basic moral steps for every child on the home front, and sadly as it appears before the public space, Mr Romanus Ejikeme failed in this regard.

To the apologists of Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma, she glided their emotional thoughts beyond their imaginations with her innocent submission after she admitted on Channels television that “After having said and done I realized I got 249.” Her confession was superficially depressing and waiting to generate sympathy from a group of blinded followers who should have demonstrated empathy with open minds for objective solutions when the 19-year-old was accused in the first place!

The unfounded Igbo victimization being paraded by one Gaius Chibueze, with a Twitter moniker  ‘BitcoinChief’ should hide his face in shame for creating unnecessary emotional chaos and tribal nuisance. Must every national issue be narrowed to his myopic conclusion of Igbos were being victimized? His unguarded vituperations in favour of Mmesoma were simply a fraudulent attempt to garner sympathy and trend on social media. He was simply a businessman waiting to cash out on the unfortunate moral naivety of Ejikeme Mmesoma.

To this end, JAMB has justified its integrity. It will have been a national embarrassment if the case had gone otherwise, judging by the long years of administrative distrust for national institutions in Nigeria. Furthermore, the years of academic, administrative and professional excellence of JAMB Registrar Professor Ishaq Oloyede and others in the examination body would have been dumped into the trash can of history. And for people who described the conduct of JAMB earlier as ‘unprofessional’ were not thinking about the moral implications of Mmesoma’s fraudulent audacity will have on the children of these top staffers of JAMB? And rightly as the situation unfolds, it is definitely a two-sided coin, what the Pro Mmesoma group failed to understand was that there is a process of sifting facts from emotions. It was evident how poor and morally deficient some people have become, especially after exposing their depths of negligence, hasty generalization and uncouth decency in the public space.

It is an established fact that social media has become a platform for bullies to thrive and shout down on others who wish to express themselves decently and are different from the trend. Government and relevant stakeholders must rise to the occasion and seek for objective solutions on how certain activities in the social media space can be regulated. The moral danger of this evolving trend may be catastrophic in the coming years of the social media space.

The moral fibre among teenagers has been thrown to the dogs. It is evident in our daily engagements on the social media space; the case of Ejikeme Joy Mmesoma was just one among a million cases prevalent across the different regions in Nigeria.

The Mmesomagate is now conventional because she failed the three gates words: Did Mmesoma at the first gate asked herself if what she was about to say was the truth and nothing but the truth? Did Mmesoma ask herself at the second gate if what she was about to say was necessary? And did she ask herself at the third gate whether what she said about JAMB being unfair to her was kind?

These were the Rumi test that Mmesoma failed to pass, and such could demoralize the moral chord of every teenager who aspires for greatness within her clan. She must be assisted to heal from this juvenile immoral audacity and made to understand that it is worthy to wait for your time with honour and dignity, just like the way Innoson withdrew the N3 million naira scholarship grant!