The West African Examinations Council has started investigating the leakage of examination questions in the ongoing 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, Sunday PUNCH reports.

Our correspondents gathered that some officials of the exam body might be connected to the leakage, particularly the circulation of the English Language paper to the public four days before the examination.

It was learnt that the police had also opened a probe into the matter.

The 2025 WASSCE English Language paper was leaked in some parts of the country, forcing WAEC to reprint new sets of questions.

The situation forced many candidates to sit the exam late into the night without electricity. Some of the affected states are Lagos, Ogun, Taraba, and Osun.

Videos and photos circulated on social media showed students sitting the examination as late as 12am and relying on torchlights and lanterns due to power outages.

The exam body, however, apologised for the delay in the conduct of the exam, blaming it on question paper leakage and malpractice.

In a statement on Thursday, WAEC’s Acting Head of Public Affairs, Moyosola Adesina, said the measures taken to prevent paper leakage “inadvertently impacted the timeliness and seamless conduct of the examination.”

She cited logistical challenges, security concerns, and sociocultural issues as contributing factors.

No fewer than 1,973,253 candidates registered for this year’s WASSCE across 23,554 schools in the country.

This came barely a month after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board suffered a major glitch during the 2025/2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, which left thousands of candidates stranded and disrupted scheduled sittings nationwide.

How exam papers leaked

Credible sources within the council, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that WAEC had already involved the police and other security agencies to investigate those behind the leak.

One of the sources explained that the council had printed the exam questions, which were being distributed when a concerned Nigerian sent information about the leak.

The source said the council was forced to reprint question papers in response to the tip-off.

The official admitted that the situation took staff by surprise, disrupting scheduled logistics and putting pressure on human resources.

“Everybody was under pressure. Some people worked 48 hours non-stop just to manage the crisis. Some staff in Ikorodu had to travel to printing presses and help pack and code question papers,” the source said.

According to insider revelations, a syndicate of “exam run” operators made millions from leaked papers.

Another source said, “One platform had over 80,000 subscribers. They were charging N1,000 per candidate for answers to the English Language paper. Even if only 50,000 people paid, that’s N50m. We have begun tracing payments made to rogue platforms, especially on WhatsApp and Telegram.”

When asked whether arrests had been made, the source simply stated, “We have met with all necessary agencies and are tracking the information. The process is ongoing.”

Leaked papers

Sunday PUNCH sighted leaked question papers that included English Language, Geography, Physics, and Literature-in-English on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.

Some of the platforms included Free WAEC Exam Infos, WAEC, Free WAEC NECO IJMB/JUBEP Students Connect, King of Exams Runs, WAEC GCE NECO Expo, Nigeria School Exams, Exam Tips Solution, and WAEC, NECO and JAMB Expo.

On some of them, users were asked to pay between N1,500 and N5,000, depending on the subject, to “buy” leaked examination papers.

A message on one of the platforms, posted on Saturday, May 24, four days before the exam, read, “For English and Mathematics, N1,500 compulsory. It will be dropping at midnight with full essay and objectives. Start subscribing ‘cause only those in the VIP will be lucky. 09159611255.”

On another platform, the cover page of the English Language Paper Two was posted on Tuesday, May 27, a day before the examination, with the poster urging candidates to pay N1,000 to get the questions.

A school administrator, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH on condition of anonymity, alleged that the questions were leaked by senior officials of the council.

He blamed the incident on the greedy officials, adding that they were only interested in personal gain.

“The question had been out as early as Saturday and Sunday, even before the exam on Wednesday. We had access to the summary, comprehension, essay, and objective questions.

“Some people got the questions through different platforms on social media. The questions were sold for as much as N4,000.

“I will blame the incident on greedy officials of the council who are all out to make money through whatever means possible.”

Parents, candidates fear mass failure

Parents and some candidates expressed fear of mass failure following the late-night conduct of the English Language paper on Wednesday in some centres across the country.

Some parents, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH, blamed the exam body for subjecting candidates to inhumane and mentally draining conditions, and called for an immediate re-sit of the examination to prevent mass failure.

The parents, under the aegis of the National Parents Teachers Association of Nigeria, condemned the poor conduct of the examination and called on WAEC to cancel the English Language paper and reschedule it.

The National Publicity Secretary of NAPTAN, Ademola Ekundayo, made the call in a statement made available to journalists on Thursday.

The body bemoaned the hardship students went through during the examination, adding that parents were also thrown into turmoil while worrying about the whereabouts of their children.

They called for the outright cancellation of the English Language paper, arguing that no reasonable results could come out of the examination.

Speaking to Sunday PUNCH, the father of one of the candidates at Islahudeen Grammar School, Oke-Oniti, Osogbo, Osun State, Ajayi Ademola, lamented that the development was disturbing for him and his daughter.

He said his daughter could not revise for the next day’s paper after getting home around 11 p.m. on Wednesday.

Ademola said, “It was a disturbing experience for me when Idowu didn’t return home around 6:30–7 p.m. She had the English paper around 2pm, and she was expected to be back home around 6pm. I started reaching out to people in town to find out what was happening, and I was told they were just starting the exam around 7 p.m.

“I was moved to tears as I pitied the students who had been seated since 1:30pm in preparation for an exam that was supposed to start by 2pm. How were they going to perform well in the exam? WAEC is not fair to the students. If you claim the exam question leaked, were the students responsible for that? The body should sanitise itself and stop punishing our children for the inadequacies of its staff. The exam should have been cancelled and rescheduled for another day.”

Another parent, Dele Ajewole, said his daughter sat the examination at a private school in the Ogo-Oluwa area in Osogbo, and was distraught before the papers were distributed to the students around 7:35 p.m. in her school.

He added that many of her colleagues were too tired by the time the examination eventually commenced.

“As a parent, if you are told by your child what they went through, then you already have an idea of what the result would be. If this suggestion can be considered, then I would say students should be allowed to re-sit the paper.

“The likelihood of mass failure is high with the challenges that marred the conduct of the exams. I waited for my daughter to complete her paper around 9:30 p.m. before we left the school premises. Everyone was rushing the paper because it was late,” he said.

Speaking in a similar vein, another parent, Isiaka Akande, who said the paper should be cancelled and a new date fixed, noted that parents and students already had an excuse should mass failure be recorded in the subject.

Also narrating her experience, a mother, Mrs Ngozi Akasike, said she became apprehensive when her daughter, Peace, didn’t return home around 7pm.

“I came back from work at 7 o’clock in the evening, only to find that my daughter, who is currently sitting the WASSCE, had not yet returned home. As a mother, I became apprehensive and was eager to know the reason she hadn’t come back. I remembered I needed to call one of the teachers at school, but his phone was switched off, which heightened my fears,” she said.

Upon arriving at the venue, Akasike said she discovered her daughter was still in the exam hall, writing English Language at exactly 23 minutes past 7.

‘Leaked exam placed serious students at disadvantage’

Speaking to Sunday PUNCH, a candidate, Olamide Adefowope, lamented that the leaked examination questions placed honest students at a serious disadvantage.

She expressed concern that the integrity of the exam process had been compromised, adding that WAEC must take decisive action to restore fairness and accountability.

Adefowope expressed fear of mass failure following the circumstances in which students were forced to sit the examination.

“We would have performed better if we had written it in the afternoon because within that afternoon, our brains were still cool, but that night, our brains were already hot because some people already wanted to go home.

“Nigeria’s education system is getting worse every day. A similar thing happened during the JAMB examination. They are making things hard for us, and it’s not supposed to be like that.

“I was under stress and pressure during the examination. I just managed to answer the questions, I did the little I could and left because it was very late in the night,” she stated.

Another candidate, Fatima Yusuf, who sat the examination in Lagos, called for the immediate cancellation of the English Language paper, describing the situation as unfair and demoralising.

She urged the examination body to prioritise integrity and justice, stressing that failure to act could erode public confidence in WAEC examinations.

Calls for CBT, stronger safeguards

Stakeholders, including the All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools and the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, have called for the adoption of Computer-Based Testing for the conduct of senior secondary school examinations.

The National President of ANCOPPS, Mallam Musa Ibrahim, who spoke with Sunday PUNCH, argued that the introduction of CBT at the secondary school level would further curtail malpractice and eliminate the influence of “miracle centres” and rogue websites.

He said, “Just like JAMB, if WAEC goes paperless, you throw rogue websites and miracle centres out of business. The attack on WAEC and JAMB is part of a wider resistance to reform. Some people don’t want CBT at the secondary school level because it will destroy their illicit business.”

He advised WAEC to improve the early detection of leaks and continue to act swiftly, as they did during the recent incident.

On his part, the National President of NAPPS, Yomi Otubela, called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

Otubela explained the need for a fact-finding committee to ascertain the actual events surrounding the examination before making any definitive decisions.

He said, “I am not against a re-sit, but a committee that will investigate the exact thing that happened should come first. If the committee finds that all the information circulating on social media is true, then there may actually be a need for a re-sit.”

“From my investigation, what some schools are saying is that students finished at 6 p.m., and I felt if they finished at 6, it might be okay. But we also need to investigate what the scheduled finishing time for the paper was. I guess it wasn’t 6 p.m.”

Speaking to Sunday PUNCH, a senior lecturer in the Department of Educational Management at the University of Lagos, Dr Olusola Thomas, urged the examination body to revisit some of the affected subjects.

“As it stands, we’ve not been able to fully ascertain the extent of the damage. So far, we’ve relied largely on public accounts and preliminary reports, which may not be comprehensive or detailed.

We don’t even have an exact count of the schools that have been compromised. This clearly suggests that the affected subjects need to be revisited,” she said.

According to her, the long hours of waiting before writing exams could have far-reaching consequences on the students’ mental health and potentially lead to widespread failure.