In 2008, Sulaiman Ismail, now 23, was
one of about 200 candidates that Ogudu Senior Grammar School, Ogudu,
GRA, Ojota, Lagos, presented for the May/June Senior Secondary School
Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination
Council (WAEC). When the examination body released the results in
September same year, the candidate, with examination number 4251410254
was one of the few who recorded average performance.
Details of his results are as follows:
English Language- C6; Mathematics- B2; Agricultural Science- B3;
Biology- C5; Chemistry- C4; Physics- C4; Economics- D7; Geography-D7
while absent was recorded against Government. In 2009, Ismail wrote the
Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by Joint
Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and scored 213. He later scored
80 per cent in the Post-UTME conducted by the University of Ilorin in
Kwara State, his preferred university, where he was eventually admitted
to study Computer Science.
He is not only four years into his studies, he is already preparing for his graduation when the unexpected happens.
As part of the prerequisites for
graduation, he appeared at relevant university’s departments for
clearance. At the Examination and Records Department, he was asked to
prove the authenticity of the SSCE result he earlier presented and upon
which he was offered admission. Innocently, Ismail supplied the detailed
information to verify the ownership and that was when he received the
shocker of his life.
“We logged on to WAEC’s website and
rather than displaying my grades against each subject that I registered,
all I could see was “cancelled” against every subject except Government
which I did not write and they put ABS, which means absent. And it was
like a dream to me at that point and even till now,” Ismail explained.
In his confused state, Ismail, a First
Class material with current Cumulative Gradient Point (GPA) of 4.64,
left Ilorin for Lagos on Thursday, February 14, and headed straight to
his school to enquire about the situation. “When I got to the school, I
met the new principal, Mr. Benedict and his deputy, Mrs. Adeniran, who
told me they were also shocked to receive the news from some of my mates
with similar experience.
When I probed further, I was only
directed to the father of one of my mates, who they claimed had better
information on the matter,” the astonished student narrated further. He
went to meet his mate’s father, Mr. Owoyemi Moses, who told him that his
son, Oluwatosin Owoyemi, was also affected by the development. But
unlike Ismail, the boy was in 200-level at Ekiti State University
(EKSU), Ado-Ekiti when he discovered there was a problem with his WAEC
result.
Oluwatosin wasn’t at home when National
Mirror visited, but his father said the trouble started in April 2012
when his son was processing his course registration as a 200-level
student and discovered that his results earlier released by WAEC had
been cancelled.
“The boy was weeping when he told me and
I could not believe my ears because he had checked same result on WAEC
website and printed it four years earlier. We also got a statement of
result from the school and the portion of a copy of the master sheet
from WAEC that contains his details. So, how come almost four years
after that he went online again to discover that, his results had been
cancelled? “I pacified him and asked him to return to Lagos so that we
could find out what was amiss. When we got to the school, I was
surprised that they were not even aware of the development.
We were only told that the students had
been coming for their certificates and that they had written officially
to WAEC to know why the certificates were yet to be released three years
after exam,” Owoyemi narrated. One of the school teachers, simply
identified as Mr. Solanke, volunteered to follow Oluwatosin and his
father to Ikorodu office of WAEC, which controls Ojodu area. There, they
met with the officer in charge, Mr. Olu Adekeye.
A letter of complaint had earlier been
sent to the office by the school. But surprisingly, the officer in
charge told us he had no knowledge of any letter from the school
concerning the matter and addressed to his office.
At that point, he got to know that the
letter was received by a subordinate, Mr. Okonkwo, who never passed it
to the relevant office for action,” Owoyemi alleged.
The matter later took the complainants
to the Ikeja office of WAEC, from where the officer in charge of the
office, simply identified as Mrs. Agwu wrote officially to the Nigeria’s
head office of the council at Yaba for action.
While these were on, the school claimed
it had informed the affected students that WAEC had responded to letter
sent earlier and that the council complained of having problem in
embossing on their certificates what they called blur photographs they
provided during registration and that it would need replacements.
“We even submitted new passport
photographs, which were also burnt on a compact disc by the school and
submitted to WAEC through its Ikorodu area office,” Oluwatosin told
National Mirror on phone, adding: “That was done January last year.”
Some of the affected students did not limit the struggle to the WAEC
office.
In May 2012 for instance, Mr. Owoyemi
took the matter before the state’s Commissioner of Education, Mrs.
Olayinka Oladunjoye, when he waited endlessly to see the positive action
from both WAEC and the school. Since then, many other affected students
have come to the school to lodge similar complaint.
One of them, who is the senior prefect
of his set and now a 500- level mechanical engineering student at the
University of Lagos (UNILAG), Adesanya Zacheous Taiwo, is also unsettled
as his fate remains hanging in the balance. Taiwo is due to graduate
this year but if the matter is not resolved, the entire five years as an
undergraduate may become a waste.
The same fate may befall Akinola Nofisat
Bukola, a final year student of the Department of Computer Science,
Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, who is also stunned and has joined
forces with her mates to seek remedy.
Now, considering the money and time he
had expended on the matter and with no headway in sight, Owoyemi, on
Tuesday, January 8, 2013, approached his lawyer, Mr. J.O. Oladeji of
Leke Oladeji and Company, who wrote the exam body’s registrar in a
letter he titled: 2008 May/June Senior Secondary Certificate of Owoyemi
Tosin Examination No- 4251410/230. In the said letter, the solicitor
requested to be furnished with reasons why his client’s result was
cancelled within a 14-day ultimatum.
“But till date, we have received no
response from WAEC and the only option left for us now is to take our
case before the public and possibly to court.” To approach the matter
from different perspectives, Mr. Owoyemi visited the Yaba office of WAEC
just last week, where he met with the body’s Deputy Director, Public
Affairs, Mr. Yusuff Ari. Ari advised that a fresh letter of complaint
should be written and addressed to the registrar of the council.
A copy of the letter made available to
National Mirror and entitled: ‘Appeal for reconsideration of result’, 19
sought the understanding of WAEC to review the situation and feed the
candidates with relevant information on the issue.
However, some of the affected students,
who gathered at the secondary school compound last Saturday, including
Sanni Muhammed, another final year student in a college in Saudi Arabia,
and Ali Saheed, resolved at storming the ministry of education latest
next week to demand for its urgent and proactive intervention.
When National Mirror approached WAEC,
Mr. Ari said the exam body later found out that a case of “serious”
malpractice was reported against the school, and that WAEC decided to
cancel the results after proper investigations were carried out.
“Their case is very complex and unusual.
But the public should know that WAEC is a very meticulous institution
that does not joke with the life of its candidates. When the school
wrote to know the cause of the development, the council replied by
informing the school that the affected students were involved in
examination malpractice.
That is the information at my disposal.
And I should add that WAEC has every right to cancel any result at any
stage it discovers any irregularity,” Ari told National Mirror. However,
the questions being asked by the candidates are that: ‘At what stage
did WAEC get know of the malpractice allegation?
What is the particular offence
committed? Who are the particular individuals found guilty of the crime?
What are the evidences against them? Was there no need for fair hearing
before the “damning” verdict?
According to Ismail, as far as he was
concerned, there was no case of examination malpractice against him
during the exam and that if he had not committed any crime, why should
he be punished?
Until WAEC responds to these probing
questions, the students’ fate will remain unknown and the situation may
create more problems not only for the students but also the country at
large. It is understandable that some other students of the set were in
higher institutions of learning in South Africa, Europe and Asia
pursuing one course or another.
But will the current situation not subject WAEC’s integrity to question among the comity of nations?
Source: National Mirror Newspaper
