Registrar of the Council, Professor Ibrahim Wushishi, disclosed this in Minna, Niger State, on Wednesday while releasing the 2025 results. He explained that the affected schools would be summoned to NECO’s headquarters for discussions before appropriate sanctions are applied.
According to him, these cases of mass cheating were part of a wider 3,878 instances of malpractice recorded in this year’s examination. Encouragingly, this represents a sharp drop compared to the 10,094 malpractice cases in 2024.
“During the conduct of the 2025 SSCE, 38 schools were found to have engaged in whole-school (mass) cheating in 13 states. They will be invited to the Council for discussion, after which sanctions will be applied,” Wushishi stated.
He added that nine supervisors — three in Rivers, one in Niger, three in the FCT, one in Kano, and one in Osun State — had been recommended for blacklisting for offences ranging from aiding and abetting cheating to assault, insubordination, and poor supervision.
The NECO boss also highlighted a serious case in Lamorde Local Government, Adamawa State, where a communal clash disrupted examinations between 7th
and 25th July, affecting eight schools, 13 subjects, and 29 papers. Talks are ongoing with the state government to reschedule the exams for the affected students.Despite the malpractice concerns, Wushishi painted a largely positive picture of the results. Out of 1,367,210 registered candidates (685,514 males and 681,696 females), a total of 1,358,339 sat for the exams. Of these, 818,492 candidates (60.26%) secured five credits and above, including English and Mathematics. A larger pool of 1,144,496 candidates (84.26%) obtained five credits and above irrespective of the two core subjects.
The council also disclosed that 1,622 candidates with special needs participated in the exams, including 941 with hearing impairment and 191 with visual impairment.
In terms of state performance, Kano led with 68,159 candidates (5.02%) achieving five credits and above, including English and Mathematics. Lagos followed with 67,007 (4.93%), while Oyo placed third with 48,742. At the bottom end, Gabon (a foreign centre) recorded no candidate with five credits and above, including English and Mathematics.
Looking forward, Wushishi announced that NECO would now conduct the SSCE on 38 subjects, in line with the reviewed national curriculum. This reform, he explained, would shorten the examination cycle and ensure faster release of results.
Reassuring the public of NECO’s commitment to integrity, the Registrar said:
“The reduction in malpractice cases this year is proof of the seriousness with which we conducted the examinations. We will continue to strengthen monitoring and oversight to protect the credibility of our results.”
