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By Olakunle Olafioye
In a few days’ time, the 2026 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) organised by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) will go full throttle. The examination, which began on April 21, 2026 with Food and Nutrition and Home Management (Practical) Planning Sessions, is expected to spring into full life this month with some key subjects, and with the final paper slated for June 19. But beyond the official time-table released by the examination body to announce the commencement of the examination, a few other indicators have continued to remind the public that the 2026 SSSCE is on-going. One of these is the ubiquitous advertisements by merchants of leaked examination questions on social media platforms with the promise to supply questions and in some cases, answers to interested candidates before the examination.
In the past few years, every outing has been challenging for WAEC with examination cheats and their agents devising new schemes to beat the examination council at its own game. The year 2025 edition was particularly challenging considering the rate at which WAEC exam papers littered the whole social media space. Worst affected were core subjects such as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Literature in English, and Economics, among others. The leaked English Language paper that went viral was in particular a major embarrassment for the examination council, which compelled the body to change the questions.
But the decision to change the English Language paper came with intense scrutiny on the activities of the examination body as candidates writing the examination in several parts of the country were subjected to the unprecedented harrowing experience of having to write the paper into the thick of the night, with most centres running without electricity or any means of illuminating the examination halls. The development, which incensed the nation’s lawmakers, earned the council severe knocks from the legislators following the appearance of WAEC’s Head of National Office, Dr Amos Josiah Dangut.
The HNO had admitted during his appearance before the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education and Examination Bodies that the council identified leaks and integrity breaches in its English Language paper just three days before the exam.
But while concerned Nigerians are looking forward to improved performance from the council this year, signs that the examination body could be in another hectic battle against exam cheats and merchants of leaked questions have multiplied in the last few weeks. Surfing through the internet, one is confronted with obscene advertisements inviting candidates to subscribe to social media platforms for examination questions and answers even before the examination date and time. “Preparing for the WAEC 2026 Exam? Join our free WAEC runz and get A’s and B’s using our free midnight WAEC platform. Join now and have a good WAEC results (sic)” one of such platforms announced gleefully with a phone number conspicuously displayed along with the message.
Another of such advertisements says: “Once you are here you can never fail again. All tutorial (centre) owners, principals, for more information on how to get WAEC questions 2026/2027 WAEC GCE runs 2026, WAEC expo 2026 …” In another instance, one of such unscrupulous agents calls on interested members of the public, saying, “Join our WhatsApp channel, follow our Facebook page, join our telegram channel if you want to subscribe for our VIP early answers. Message 090xxxxxxxx.”
For years, examination cheats and their accomplices have come up with various tricks to beat examination bodies to their games, devising different approaches and forcing examiners to relentlessly come up with measures to counter their tricks. Stakeholders are disturbingly concerned that the advent and advancement in modern information and communication technology continue to provide escape routes for unscrupulous elements behind this criminal act and candidates as well as their collaborators who patronise them during examination.
In the last few years, examination questions have found their way out to the public domain long before the scheduled days or time for such papers. Such leaked papers or answers are hawked on social media to lazy and desperate students and their collaborators who subscribe to their channels. A parent, Mrs Mary Obande, who said that his child was unlucky to have found himself at a centre where leaked questions were procured in the past, said his child’s experience at the centre had confirmed to him that unless WAEC and the National Examination Council (NECO) decide to go fully CBT like JAMB, both examination bodies will continue to struggle against exam cheats and examination malpractice.
Mrs Obande who claimed that her son had to re-sit the exam a year later as the centre’s results were cancelled, lamented that the activities of the perpetrators of examination malpractices often affect both the innocent and the guilty. She blamed the examination body not only for its inability to secure examination papers but also for resorting to punishing even the innocent whenever it discovers any foul play at any centre. “Whenever there is a case of mass cheating at any centre, it should not be too difficult for WAEC to fish out the perpetrators because those involved will always have similar answers. In that situation candidates with different answers, especially in theory questions, should be exonerated. What WAEC does in such a situation is to resort to blanket punishment that often affects students who are innocent.
Attempts by WAEC to sanction students suspected of cheating of any kind have always come at a huge price for both the council and the students in general. Last year the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Lagos wing took a swipe at the examination body in the aftermath of the mass failure that trailed last year’s WASSCE. The council had admitted that it took stringent measures to curb malpractices discovered in the cause of marking the scripts, which it blamed for the failure rate recorded in the year. Addressing the issue, the chairman of the Lagos wing of the union, Akintoye Hassan said the examination body could not feign ignorance about the websites where questions were leaked. His words: “Now, relating that back to the earlier assertion I had made—that there are sites that the so-called questions, some of these younger ones access them, WAEC is aware of this. So if you could not curb malpractices at that end, your questions leaked, because the issue of this latest exam whereby students wrote the exam late at night was as a result of the fact that WAEC admitted that their question had leaked,”Akintoye had said in response to WAEC’s claim of malpractice in the 2025 examination.
Not a few Nigerians are concerned that the examination council is yet to find a way of ending the illegal practice of merchandising its examination questions and answers online after many years. But an Information Technology expert, Mr Raphael Madumere said finding a lasting solution to internet related crime in a country like Nigeria is not as easy as many people think.
“Tracking those selling question papers online is not as easy as many people think. Oftentimes, they use stolen identities, fake online profiles and these make it difficult to trace the actual people behind these criminal acts. Apart from this, our law enforcement agencies lack the sophisticated technological infrastructure required to track online criminals,” he said.
Notwithstanding however, Madumere believes there are few steps that could be taken by examination bodies to fight the criminal trend of merchandising question papers and answers online to candidates writing the external examinations. One of such ways, according to him, is to infiltrate the syndicates and set up several parallel platforms that will dish out examination questions that are different from the ones to be answered by the candidates. A situation where there exist several versions of examination questions will definitely cause confusion among those who subscribe to them. In the same vein, wrong answers can equally be dished out whereby those who subscribe to are deliberately misled to write wrong answers.” he stated.
Besides, Madumere calls for stringent legislation against examination malpractice. “I know JAMB has shown some appreciable level of seriousness in dealing with the people that try to undermine the integrity of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). But my view on that is that the focus has been mainly on adults and non-students who aid and collaborate with these young ones to perpetrate examination offences. There should be a major sanction for the students who engage in exam misconducts. For instance, any student caught engaging in serious violation of exam rules could be barred from seeking admission to any tertiary institution in the country for a number of years in addition to forfeiting the results of the examination.”
An educationist, Mr Segun Adetula is frustrated that the integrity of results from major examination bodies in the country remains a major concern owing to the pervasiveness of examination misconducts among students. Adetula pointed out that parading good results after a major external examination like SSSCE is no longer a determinant of students’ abilities. “I have seen a student who could not define ‘Biology’ but who had B2 in the subject. How do you justify that? In the past scoring A’s in nine subjects in WAEC was very uncommon. But today, our students flaunt all A’s in their SSCE results not because they are brilliant or because they worked very hard but because they are very good at beating the system and cheating their way through. It is high time we stamped out this ill from our educational system in Nigeria,” he submitted.
