From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Examination bodies in Nigeria, notably, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO) and National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB) have been directed to derecognise Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres as well as candidates convicted of examination malpractices.
This was contained in a letter by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, to JAMB and the concerned examination bodies, dated May 27th, 2025.
The decision of the Minister, perhaps, was in response to the unprecedented examination malpractices reported by JAMB in its recently conducted Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)
The Minister, however, suggested that any school/CBT centre involved in examination malpractice and/or acting as a “miracle centre” should be derecognised for a number of years that will be determined by the examination body.
“If any school/CBT centre is derecognised by any examination body, other sister examination bodies should follow suit and derecognise the same school/CBT centre for the same number of years to run concurrently. This will send a very strong signal to operators of these miracle centres.
“The student(s) involved in examination malpractice should be barred from sitting for any external examinations in Nigeria, such as those conducted by WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, etc, for three years using the instrumentality of NIN. Such a stringent measure will serve as a deterrent to other students and parents.”
The Minister stated that the directive is also In accordance with section 16(2) of the Examination Matpractices Act, which states: “an examination body may, in the exercise of its powers under this section, circulate the name of an offending candidate, supervisor, invigilator, officlal, school, or examination centre to other examination bodies, which may impose similar punishment.”
A few days ago, during the release of UTME rescheduled results, JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said that JAMB recorded advanced malpractices in the rescheduled UTME.
He said: “While some Nigerians are busy dissipating energies on conspiracy theories and the spread of hatred, the future of Nigeria is being put in jeopardy by an advanced level digitalised fraud.
“During the 2025 examinations, further high-level malpractices were uncovered, which led to the withdrawal of some results and the arrest of several culprits across the country, some of whom have made useful confessions
“These unwholesome practices include collusion of certain CBT centre/school proprietors with the connivance of accredited centres to hack the networks of targeted CBT centres thereby gaining control of candidates’ computers and remotely submitting their responses to the relevant local server of the centre as recently discovered by the security agencies to whom we are profoundly grateful.
“AI-enabled photo blending of candidates with impersonators, many of whom are current undergraduate students; registration with combined fingerprints, which involves the combination of fingerprints from multiple persons for a single candidate’s registration.
“There were also cases of extension of Local Area Networks (LAN) from centres to remote ‘strong rooms’; pairing of candidates with professional mercenaries after wilful disruption of sitting arrangements who had registered for the UTME for the purpose of access to the examination hall. Unfortunately, many undergraduates of tertiary institutions are found to be involved in this nefarious practice.
“While releasing the results, it should be emphasised that recent discoveries, particularly by the security agencies,s have necessitated the withdrawal of some of the results of implicated candidates across the country whose results have been previously released,
“Over three thousand candidates nationwide have been identified as either accomplices or beneficiaries of this extraordinary examination fraud. But as investigation progresses, all candidates implicated in these unwholesome activities will have their results withdrawn as soon as incontrovertible proofs are established, even if the results have been released.”