The controversy surrounding the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results has deepened, with an official raising concerns over alleged irregularities and technical glitches affecting the release and processing of candidates’ results.
The latest development has heightened concerns among students, parents and schools, as questions mount over the accuracy, reliability and transparency of the results process.
Olanrewaju Fadehan, head of examinations at WAEC’s Anambra office, made the claims in a video that has since gone viral, alleging that candidates who sat the computer-based version of the examination bore the brunt of the anomalies.
According to Fadehan, results originally scheduled for release between August 3 and 5, 2026, in line with WAEC’s tradition of announcing results on Mondays, were delayed, a sign, he said, that something had gone wrong behind the scenes.
“Obviously, there was a problem because the press was eagerly waiting on Monday, the scheduled date. There was a need to quickly do some last-minute adjustments. Something was wrong,” Fadehan said.
He alleged that the last-minute adjustments disproportionately affected candidates who wrote the computer-based examination, particularly in Mathematics, English Language and Igbo, and pointed to reports of unusually poor performance in Igbo among South-East candidates as a red flag, given how widely the language is spoken in the region.
Besides, Fadehan raised concerns over the financial exposure of schools that had invested in computer-based testing (CBT) infrastructure ahead of WAEC’s planned transition, claiming some institutions committed upward of N60 million to set up the required facilities.
“The call for a review this year is particularly disturbing, as it is alarming. Schools that subscribed to the CBT innovation of WAEC were badly hit. Some of them spent upwards of N60m to set up their CBT facilities,” he alleged.
He further claimed that some candidates were not issued appropriate calculators during the examination, a lapse he said contributed to poor outcomes in mathematics and other calculation-intensive subjects.
Fadehan said he had flagged the alleged irregularities during the examination period and subsequently petitioned the WAEC Board, the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education and Examining Bodies, and the Minister of Education. Rather than getting a response to his complaints, he said he was placed under disciplinary proceedings and later interdicted.
He called on President Bola Tinubu to order an investigation into the failure rate among candidates, particularly those who sat the computer-based option.
Fadehan also alleged financial impropriety within WAEC’s management, citing the supply of calculators and candidates’ identification cards, as well as charges levied on candidates and other service users, and urged the federal government and other stakeholders to probe the allegations, stressing the stakes for the integrity of Nigeria’s examination system.
BusinessDay had earlier reported that WAEC was already under pressure over the integrity of the 2026 WASSCE results, with school administrators and education advocates alleging grading anomalies and technical glitches tied to the expanded rollout of computer-based testing.
Those concerns followed complaints that some high-performing students received grades lower than their academic records and performance in other standardised assessments would suggest.
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