By Gabriel Dike
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has written to the Federal Government and the Inspector General of Police on the threat of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to disrupt the ongoing nationwide May/June 2024 school exams next Thursday.
Daily Sun also learnt that the council wrote to the governors of the five South East states to seek their assurance on a hitch-free exam.
Investigations revealed that the WAEC management is in a dilemma, following the warning by the IPOB that the council should not conduct any exam on Thursday next week.
IPOB through its Director of Publicity, Emma Powerful, had, in a statement last week, warned WAEC and management of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, not to conduct WASSCE and hold the convocation ceremony on Thursday, May 30.
WASSCE is ongoing nationwide in over 22,229 secondary schools and candidates would write 76 subjects, made up of 191 papers. The exams started on Tuesday, April 30 and will end on June 24.
The Head of National Office (HNO) of WAEC, Dr. Amos Dangut, had disclosed that 1,814,344 candidates from 22,229 schools would write the school exams. He said out of this 902,328 are males, representing 49.73 percent, while 912,016 are females, which is 50.27 percent of the total candidates.
Daily Sun gathered that since IPOB gave the warning, WAEC management has held a series of meetings and made contact with the Federal Ministry of Education, the five state ministries of education and the IGP on how to resolve the issue.
A source told Daily Sun that the South East presents a large number of candidates for the exams and any disruption of the General Mathematics would make the exams incomplete.
Without General Mathematics, the candidates cannot secure admission in the universities as the five credits must include English and Mathematics.
He explained that the management of WAEC was in a dilemma on how to handle the IPOB’s ultimatum that would affect five states.
He added: “If the General Mathematics fails to hold on Thursday as scheduled, it will be very difficult for the council to fix another date and conduct the exam solely for the South East candidates.”
Investigations revealed that Anambra, Abia, Imo, Enugu and Ebonyi states have over 3,150 centres with over 300,000 candidates.