- NECO Registrar Prof. Wushishi reveals states owe N3 billion to the council and registered fewer candidates this year
- He attributes the drop in registration to various factors, including the states’ selection based on personal reasons and economic challenges
Prof. Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi, Registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO), has revealed that states owe the council N3 billion.
He also mentioned that the organisation registered fewer candidates for this year’s exam than it did last year.
According to the registrar, the examination body registered 1,205, 888 candidates this year, up from 1,209, 000 last year. The registrar revealed that 661, 074 were males and 584, 814 were females.
Wushishi, who spoke while monitoring this year’s NECO examination in some centres in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on Friday, blamed the shortfall on a variety of factors. He stated that because registration is done by states, they could select the number they wanted to register based on their personal reasons and circumstances.
He also cited the country’s economic situation as a reason for some parents’ and schools’ refusal to register candidates for the examination.
Again, we are very, very strict in maintaining the closing date for registration. Though we extended the date for registration, there were states that came thereafter to register their candidates. Some came with about 140 and some came with less. We told them we had extended the date and there is no more extension. These could have contributed to the drop in registration of candidates, he said.
The registrar stated that the tour, which began on July 24, took his team to the Northwestern states of Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, and Plateau, and that the same exercise was done in the South West last year, with the intention of going to the South-South and Southeast by next year.