The police headquarters in Abuja on Friday paraded 17 suspects including school principals, teachers and supervisors who were arrested for alleged involvement in examination malpractices during the August/September Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC).
Spokesman for the Nigeria Police Force, Mr. Frank Mba said during the parade of the suspects to journalists that they (suspects) were apprehended in Kano, Bauchi, Nasarawa and Rivers states while others apprehended in Delta, Enugu and Lagos states had been arraigned in courts.
He said WAEC had begun a massive collaboration and partnership with the NPF to strengthen the integrity of its examination processes
“WAEC has begun massive collaboration and partnership with the NPF designed to strengthen integrity and wipe out all kinds of examination malpractices. He regretted that the bulk of the suspects are persons employed, trained and are being paid by WAEC.
“Some of them are teachers, principals in secondary schools. One of them is a primary school teacher. Some of them were host teachers; some are supervisors in the school where the exams took place,” he said.
In line with the new spirit of collaboration and partnership intended to help in stamping out all kinds of examination malpractices in the country, Mba said WAEC worked hard with the NPF during the nationwide examination to fish out all persons perpetrating or aiding the perpetration of examination malpractices in any form.
“It is in line with this new approach and partnership that we present to you today, a total of 17 suspects arrested from different parts of the country.
“Paradoxically the bulk of these suspects who are aiding the perpetration of these fraud and exam malpractices all happen to be persons who were employed, trained and paid to promote the educational system. I am talking of teachers. All of them are teachers.
“They are the ones that work as supervisors, invigilators or as the host teachers in the schools the exams are conducted.
“We want to issue this strong warning to members of the public out there including parents, guardians, teachers and even the candidates who are preparing to sit for subsequent examinations that we have been able, working in conjunction with WAEC, to develop very robust intervention approaches, very robust technologies that will always enable us to detect, trace and find anyone who has been involved in any form of cheating and fraud in WAEC exams.
“We therefore want to advise teachers, guardians, parents and candidates that the shortest cut to their success is indeed for them to sit down and prepare their wards and their candidates adequately for these exams. No other way will give them the kind of success they are looking for and no other way would take them to the destination they want to go.
“All these suspects would be arraigned before competent courts of law in the country. As I speak to you some of them have already been charged to court,” Mba added.
Also speaking, Mrs. Omolemi Hassan who represented the head of national council of WAEC in Nigeria expressed appreciation to the police for the support which led to arrest of the suspects.
She used the opportunity to disprove the insinuation that there was leakage of examination question papers
“Indeed during the exams many people were talking about leakage and so on. There was no leakage at all. It was just a situation where those we trusted with our question papers, those who were nominated by ministries of education in different states. They were the ones after we gave them questions papers may be at 9am for exam of 9.30am, they stopped to take pictures and put on…whatsapp groups. They are indeed those who have tried to scuttle our efforts. But we thank God because we have a lot of devices within the council that detect malpractices,” she said.
