The West African Examinations Council has withheld the results of 167,486 candidates who sat for the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination for school candidates over alleged involvement in examination malpractice.
The affected results account for 8.59 per cent of the 1,950,726 candidates who participated in the examination, a decrease from the 9.7 per cent recorded in the 2025 examination.
Speaking during the official release of the 2026 WASSCE results in Lagos on Wednesday, the Head of WAEC’s Nigeria National Office, Dr. Amos Dangut, attributed the withheld results to various forms of examination misconduct.
“The increasing use of cell phones in the examination hall, in spite of the existing ban, and organised cheating in some schools, are other nagging issues,” Dangut said.
He disclosed that some supervisors and invigilators allegedly caught aiding candidates during the examination had been arrested and would face disciplinary action through the appropriate state ministries of education.
Dr. Dangut said 1,959,668 candidates from 24,207 schools in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea registered for the examination, while 1,950,726 eventually sat for the tests.
According to the performance statistics, 1,200,514 candidates, representing 61.54 per cent, obtained credits in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics. In addition, 1,687,378 candidates, or 86.50 per cent, earned five credits and above, with or without English and Mathematics.
Of the candidates who secured the minimum five credits including English and Mathematics, 558,883 were male, while 641,631 were female.
WAEC further stated that 1,834,695 candidates, representing 94.05 per cent, had their results fully processed and released, while the results of 116,031 candidates were still being processed.
The council also disclosed that 1,213 candidates with special needs participated in the examination, including visually impaired, hearing-impaired, physically challenged, and other candidates requiring special support.
Dangut noted that the 2026 examination was the second edition of the Computer-Based WASSCE for school candidates and highlighted measures introduced by the council to strengthen the integrity of the examination process.
“The council introduced innovations such as the Digital Examiner Mark System, serialisation of question papers and a new portal for candidates to generate e-PINs directly for checking their results,” he said.
The examination was conducted between April 24 and June 19, 2026, with more than 102,000 examiners involved in the marking process across 88 centres nationwide.
Dangut also warned that candidates sponsored by state governments indebted to WAEC would not have their results released until the outstanding payments were settled.
