NECO-Niger state results withheld over debt 

Precious Yusuf

The National Examinations Council(NECO), have withheld the results of all the students who participated in the examination in Niger state over the N500 million debt that the government owed the examination council. 

The debt was accumulated from the unpaid examination fees of the students in the state. 

Dantani Wushishi, the registrar of the examination body made this information known when he announced that the results of the recently concluded 2022 Internal Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations on Thursday in Minna. 

“Niger State owes about N500m as they have currently reduced their outstanding debts. The state government has assured us that it will pay and clear off the debts,” Wushishi said.

He pointed out that the government had been advised to separate the names of students who were self-sponsored from those who were sponsored by the state government. This would the council enough information to know which results were to be withheld and which should be released. 

“We have requested from the state government to try and separate the names of those the state is sponsoring and those sponsored by their parents and guardians. Other states like Jigawa and Kano have cleared most their backlogs and even paid for the current examination,” he revealed. 

He added that malpractice had greatly reduced this year in the examination compared to past years with about 70 percent of the students obtaining five credits in English Language,Mathematics and other relevant subjects. 

“In the area of malpractices, 13,595 persons were caught as against 20,003 in the year 2021, which showed an appreciable decline in the number of malpractice cases.”

Wushishi said 1,209,703 students register for the examination while 1,198,412 sat for the examination across the country.