By Saheed Ibrahim
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The West African Examination Council has revealed it has arrested 56 rogue website operators that leaked its West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations.
The examination body also revealed that no fewer than 15 persons, comprising candidates, supervisors, and school proprietors have also been arrested in connection with examination malpractices.
The Head of National Office, Nigeria, Mr Patrick Areghan, gave the revelations while monitoring the ongoing 2023 May/June Senior Secondary Certificate Examination in some government secondary schools in Abuja.
Areghan said some unsuspecting parents and students had fallen victims to the rogue website operators, who only publish fake questions and lure victims to subscribe to their websites, saying “there is no way they can get our questions,”.
He alleged that supervisors, who are supposed to take questions to examination centres, are aiding and abetting malpractices nationwide.
“In all, we have made arrests of no fewer than 15 persons comprising candidates, supervisors, school proprietors, and others connected with malpractices.
“We have arrested students, a supervisor, candidates, and other groups in Ibadan. In Maiduguri, supervisors and candidates were arrested, while in Abeokuta, a school proprietor who started it (examination malpractice) from the beginning of the examination was arrested along with others. In Osogbo, a candidate, a supervisor, and so many others in Umuahia too, who were involved in the illegal act, were arrested.
“Supervisors are our problems; they make a lot of money from this. The exam is taking place in over 21,000 secondary schools in Nigeria with only 2,000 staff strength; how many centres are we going to man?
“These supervisors are teachers given to us by state ministries of education, and when they come, they make it a business.
“We have a regulation to release papers to supervisors one hour before commencement time to enable them to go from the collection point to the administrative point because of distance in some schools.
“But what they do is to snap the question papers and send them to their syndicate groups.
“Candidates are already in the exam hall, and you are posting the questions. Sometimes, they change the front of the questions and add 2023 for exam questions of 2020,” he said.
The WAEC head said that the council had, however, put technology in place to detect any misconduct from any location.
