Parents and guardians are crying foul over Niger State government’s non-remittance of examination fees it collected from students, who wrote the June/July 2016 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE), to the National Examination Council (NECO).
While their counterparts from other parts of Nigeria and overseas had theirs released last weekend, candidates from Niger State could not access their results because the state government’s non-remittance of the fees to NECO.
Findings by our correspondent in Niger State also revealed that similar fate befell candidates of state origin who sat for the last West African Examination Council (WAEC) exams as they are yet to get their results because of the same indebtedness by the state government.
Consequently, parents are now afraid that their wards may miss this year’s admission as most universities are closing admission of fresh intakes soon.
Some parents /guardians had in an interview lamented that despite claims by the current administration to pay more attention to the education sector of the state, the reverse has been the case.
“We paid over N11, 000 each for the NECO examination through the state Ministry of Education but unfortunately we were made to understand that the state government refused to remit the money to NECO coffers and that is why they have refused to release the results”.
Some of the parents spoke anonymously.
One of them said, “WAEC is also withholding results of candidates who sat for the examination; as I am talking to you today they have not been able to access their results for same reason”.
The parents argued that while the immediate past administration assisted parents in paying examination fees for all eligible candidates and have their results released as at and when due, the present administration collected the fees promising to remit to NECO but renege and that is what brought about seizing of the last June/July results.
When contacted, the state Commissioner for Education, Hajiya Fatima Madugu, confirmed that the state government had issues to settle with NECO which invariably may have prompted the withholding of the last examination results.
The commissioner who however argued that current financial challenges which may have prompted the state government to withhold monies from parents to have their wards write the last WAEC and NECO SSCE is not peculiar to Niger State alone. She said that the state will be relying on the outcome of the next FAAC meeting to sort everything out with the examination bodies.
According to the commissioner, “About 5, 000 candidates wrote the exams and we are indebted to NECO to the tune of about N200 million, hoping that by next week after the FAAC meeting we will meet with NECO and see how we can solve the issues”.
Madugu who seems to be contradicting herself about all monies collected from candidates for examination purposes told our correspondent on phone that, “The state government committed N6 million for administrative charges. We remitted all that we collected and we paid for the Nov/Dec 2015 (external) for candidates with deficiencies in their results”.
