Candidates from six northern states are unable to access their results in the May/June National Examinations Council (NECO’s) Senior Secondary School Examinations (SSCE) released by the agency last weekend because their state governments’ defaulted in paying their examination fees, IgbereTV reports.
IgbereTV findings revealed that the states are hugely indebted to the examination body, through the free Examinations fee policy adopted to help their indigenous candidates.
NECO sources in Minna, the Niger State capital, said the council decided not to release the results until the affected states show commitment of payment of their debt.
One of the sources said, “There is one northern state owing NECO N1 billion. This particular state has shown no commitment of payment and has rolled over the debt for the past four years running to the amount.”
It was learnt that even as the affected states paid for the candidates who are indigenes, the non-indigenes who paid for themselves would not be able to access their result because NECO used a single code for each state.
The registrar and chief executive officer of NECO, Professor Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, has said in an interview after releasing the results that some states in the north were owing the council over N2.8 billion as unpaid examination fees.
Wushishi said, “97 per cent of the debt is owed by six northern state governments” but declined to give their names.
