Police Probe 19-Year-Old who Threatened JAMB with N1Bn Suit

Chinedu Ifesinachi John, a 19-year-old candidate in the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), who accused the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), of altering his original score of 380, was handed over to the Nigeria Police for investigation.

The candidate, according to Fabian Benjamin, head of Information and Media, JAMB, has allegedly confessed to committing the offence.

He was handed over to the Police at JAMB headquarters in Bwari, FCT on Friday.

Benjamin said: “The candidate (Chinedu Ifesinachi John) 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.

“The police are on their way to Enugu to arrest his sister.”

John had claimed he scored 380 in the examination conducted in June this year and was surprised to receive 265 from the board after the results were released. After several enquiries, 265 kept appearing as his score as against the 380 score.

Following the alleged “alteration” of the UTME score, John Ifenkpam, his father, approached Ikeazor Akaiwe, an Enugu – based lawyer, who wrote to JAMB for another opportunity for the boy to retake the examination and demanded N1 billion as damages.

The lawyer said the N1 billion was to cover physical and emotional trauma the boy had suffered from being offered “two separate scores from 2019 – 2021.”

John 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 traveled down to Abuja from Enugu state following an invitation from the management of the board led by Prof Is-haq Oloyede, registrar of JAMB.

Initially, the boy was given some 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.

At the Friday meeting, documentary evidence tendered by the board showed that John actually scored 265 not the 380 he had claimed.

Oloyede accused the candidate of result tempering, 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 John would be withdrawn pending the end of the investigation.

He also said a team of security agents would visit Enugu state to arrest members of a tutorial group the boy confessed to belong to.

Ikeazor, John’s lawyer, appealed to the board to give room for further investigation.

He said: “I will not stand against investigation. Let there be investigation but what I will not agree to is to prejudge him.”