ALARMING: NECO EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE SITES STILL OPERATIONAL!
Barely a week after Radio Nigeria broke the news of alleged gross malpractice in the on-going National Examination Council (NECO) 2018 Examinations, more revelations have emerged even as little or nothing seem to have been done to block the sites from which answers are leaked.
A renowned Gospel Preacher, Billy Graham says “the greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grand children is not money or other material things accumulated in one’ life, rather a legacy of character and faith.”
Lack of these great virtues might be the reason for the high level of exam malpractice being witnessed in the country. Perhaps this is also why, the alleged questions and answers to the ongoing NECO Exam have continued to be made available in the exam malpractice sites earlier reported; they include exam sort.com, exam crown.co and exam key.net.
This development has remained a source of worry to some concerned Nigerians who said they were embittered that the authorities of NECO dismissed the paper leak as fake without any effort to get to the root of the matter, at least to save unsuspecting Nigerians the obvious consequences.
Also the nonchalant attitude shown by Stakeholders in the education sector not minding the gravity of the problem and its effect on the society. A Lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Professor Ozioma Onwuzulike, who described the situation as unfortunate, said many students did not study to get A’s in GCE, WAEC, NECO or JAMB, when they had such alternatives. He said he was alarmed when he went to the Exam Malpractice Sites and found that they had been in operation since 2015.
Professor Onwuzulike said since the discovery, his several efforts to get the attention of the interest groups to ensure that the Sites were shut down was to no avail. Corroborating the findings, the Enugu State Commissioner for Education, Professor Uche Eze, urged the Exam bodies to come out and state exactly what was happening.
An Artiste, Writer and Movie Director, Mr. Solomon Arua who knew about the Sites since 2016, said in the school he was taught, a student was caught on the day of exam with three phones fully subscribed to the sites, and he had since then been in the vanguard of the fight to end the crime.
In an interview, some respondents said the exam bodies should be held liable since they failed to lodge complaints to the Police, DSS or approached MTN to block the lines made available at the Sites.
Unfortunately, the following numbers are still operational in the sites: for exam key.net, 09061641620 and 08137347679; for exam sort.com, 07063609771; and exam crown.co, 07032581573 as well as codes for the different subjects.
Radio Nigeria went to Nigeria Communications Commission Office in Enugu to find out the result of the investigation. The Zonal Head, Mrs. Emilia Nwokoro, promised to investigate the allegation, although she was not on seat during the visit. She was contacted through phone and she explained that nothing else had been done apart from the initial call to MTN.
A Youth, Mr. Innocent Obi, described the situation as national shame that must be tackled holistically.
Due to the enormity of the crime and its effect, a Senior Citizen and former Commissioner for Education in the Old Anambra State, Chief Nduka Eya, urged the Police to bring to bear their full intelligence gathering to unravel the mystery surrounding the matter instead of waiting for a formal report.
However, all efforts to reach the Zonal Coordinator of NECO in the State, Mrs. Maria Ukaegbu, failed again as she was not in her office and did not call after the State Coordinator NECO, Mr. Sunny Bolaji claimed he forwarded the phone number of Radio Nigeria’s correspondent to her,
The questions on the lips of some concerned persons are: for how long would the perpetrators of this heinous crime be allowed to operate and for how long would examination malpractice be allowed to pull down the education system of this country?
CHINELO OZOALOR