The Federal Executive Council has
approved the amendment to an Act of
the West African Examinations Council,
part of which will make culprits of
examination malpractice to be liable to
five-year jail term or N200,000 fine or
both.
The Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyat
Rufai, announced this in Abuja on
Wednesday while briefing State House
Correspondents on the outcome of the
weekly FEC meeting. He addressed
journalists in company with her
counterpart in the Health and
Environment ministries, Onyebuchi
Chukwu and Hadza Mailafia, respectively.
Rufai said the decision of the meeting,
which was presided over by President
Goodluck Jonathan, was to “give effect to
the revised convention of WAEC, 2003 in
Nigeria.”
She said the Council had subsequently
directed the Ministry of Justice to take
further necessary action on the subject.
Rufai had recently presented a memo to
FEC, seeking its approval for the
enactment of an Act to amend the WAEC
Act, CAP W4, Laws of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, 2004 with the aim of giving
effect to the revised convention of WAEC,
2003 in the country.
The 2004 Act, “empowers WAEC to take
disciplinary action against those who have
committed both the offences and
penalties for illegally using examination
papers and leakage of examination
papers.”
Section 19(1) of the Act reads in part,
“Such candidate shall not take or be
allowed to take or continue the
examination; in addition, he shall be
prohibited from taking any examination
held or conducted by or on behalf of the
Council for a period of two years
immediately following upon such
contraventions.
“If a candidate aforesaid has already
taken any papers at the examination, his
result therefrom shall be cancelled.
“In addition, the candidate may be
prosecuted and if found guilty, shall be
liable on conviction to a fine of N200, 000
or imprisonment for a term of five years
or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
The sub-continental examination body
was established in 1952 following the
acceptance of the Jeffery Report by the
then colonial governments in Gold Coast
(Ghana), Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the
Gambia and later joined by Liberia in
1974.

So easy for them to approve a 5 year jail term for exam malpractice.... Wish they can extend such gesture to corruption and theft of public fund.

Nigerian youths don suffer Oo.. We
are the most neglected(ASUU
strike), most abused. I think the
same jail terms should be given
to election riggers, corrupt Gov't
officials. Nonsense!! They don't always pass the right laws.