Nigeria’s West African Examinations Council (WAEC) withheld results for 8.59% of candidates in its 2026 school-candidate exam, a five-year low in a measure tied to reported malpractice cases under investigation.
WAEC withheld results for 167,486 of the 1,950,726 candidates who sat the exam. The share declined each year in the council’s 2022-26 series: from 22.83% in 2022 to 16.29% in 2023, 11.92% in 2024 and 9.75% in 2025, before reaching 8.59% this year.
The National Examinations Council (NECO) reported a separate measure: Registrar Dantani Wushishi said 1,406 candidates were involved in malpractice during its 2026 Senior School Certificate Examination Internal, compared with 3,878 in 2025. Those counts imply a 63.74% decline. WAEC’s figure is a share of candidates whose results were withheld; NECO’s is a count of candidates involved in malpractice, so the measures are not directly comparable.
WAEC credited computer-based testing with helping curb misconduct. Candidates could choose between computer-based and pen-and-paper exams, but the council’s published total does not separate withheld results by format. The figures therefore do not show how much, if any, of the decline was associated with computer-based testing.
The council also pointed to serialized question papers, which it introduced in 2025 and improved in 2026, and its Digital Examiner Mark System. Amos Josiah Dangut, then head of WAEC’s Nigeria National Office, said computer-based testing had helped: “It has helped in combating the menace of examination malpractice.”
Wushishi credited the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Department of State Services with helping deter wrongdoing through their support and vigilance. WAEC said mobile phones in exam halls and organized cheating at some schools remained concerns.
WAEC said a committee would review the cases linked to withheld results and send decisions to affected candidates through their schools. The council gave no date for those decisions.
