Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa says Nigeria’s exam system has a serious problem, and parents, teachers and students all need to pay attention.
Speaking on Thursday at a meeting with the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools and other education players, Alausa made a shocking claim. According to Punch Newspaper, he said NECO question papers were once sold for as little as N3,000 before students even entered the exam hall. He called the level of cheating “mind-boggling” and said Nigeria had tolerated it for too many years.
“It is painful,” he said. “Before the Minister of State and I came on board, exam fraud and paper leaks were treated as normal. It was a terrible situation. The real risk is that even serious students will be forced to join, just to keep up.”
The minister pointed to the period when Prof. Ibrahim Wushishi was NECO Registrar. He said candidates knew where to get the papers.
“They had a name for it: ‘Wushishi’,” Alausa explained. “You could buy the questions for N3,000 before the exam day. I didn’t realize ‘Wushishi’ was also slang for the dark web.”
He said the problem did not disappear. During the 2025 exams, he said he received leaked questions on his phone almost every morning.
“I would wake up worried,” Alausa recalled. “She would message me: ‘I just got this question.’ Sometimes it was English, sometimes Chemistry. I would send it to the HNO, the Head of National Office, to check. And the reply would be, ‘Sadly, that is today’s paper.’”
But Alausa stressed that students should not carry all the blame. He said the bigger issue is the adults who run the system.
“Don’t think it is only one school,” he said. “The entire system is affected. I don’t put too much blame on the children. Any child can make mistakes. But when parents, school owners, teachers, principals and invigilators are all part of it, then the students are the least guilty. The people who should prevent it are the ones encouraging it.”
Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, also spoke at the meeting. She said many students perform well in school tests only because they are used to seeing leaked questions before big exams. To stop this, she said the ministry will now use serialized question papers. That means each paper will be different, making it harder to leak and forcing students to study properly.
Alausa said these steps are part of President Bola Tinubu’s plan to fix education in Nigeria. He said the government wants certificates to reflect real knowledge, not who had money to buy answers.
“We are a country that believes in the rule of law,” he said. “President Tinubu is changing Nigeria like never before. We are building a future that will stand.”
He also told private school owners to complete their syllabus on time, help students study every day, and cooperate with the ministry as the new measures begin.
For years, Nigeria has battled exam malpractice including leaked papers, impersonation and collusion. Alausa warned that without urgent action, honest students will keep losing out.
“We accepted this for too long,” he said. “Now it must end.”