Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Nigeria has broken its silence on the chaotic late‑night examinations that forced thousands of secondary school candidates to write papers with torchlights and mobile phone flashlights. In a statement on Monday, the examination body attributed the disruption to a fatal road accident that claimed the lives of three of its officials and massive protests triggered by the abduction of schoolchildren in Oyo State.
The statement, signed by Moyosola Adesina, WAEC’s head of public affairs, said the delays were caused by “a combination of logistical and operational challenges”. It noted that the tragedy occurred on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, when three WAEC staff members died in a head‑on collision along the Gombe‑Yola highway. The officials – identified as Eleshin Dennis Olayinka, Dan‑Malam Add’ua Muhammed, and Yusuf Umar Gwamna – were transporting sensitive examination materials at the time. Their vehicle was rammed by an oncoming truck, and none of them survived.
The accident threw WAEC’s distribution schedule into turmoil. Question papers and answer booklets failed to reach several centres on time, forcing candidates sitting the General Mathematics paper on Wednesday and the Agricultural Science practical examination on Thursday to begin well after 8 pm – in many cases past 10 pm. Students dragged chairs outside classrooms to catch whatever light remained or wrote answers by torchlight, solar lamps, and mobile phone screens.
But WAEC said the crash was not the only factor. In a parallel development that same week, massive protests erupted across parts of the South‑West over the abduction of more than 40 schoolchildren and teachers in Oyo State’s Oriire Local Government Area. Those demonstrations, which included roadblocks and calls for government action, blocked major roads used by WAEC couriers, further delaying the delivery of examination materials. Adesina said the combination of mourning for the dead staff members and the security‑related blockages “severely compromised our distribution schedule, which inadvertently led to the delayed start times”.
The council also pointed to broader operational failings. Preliminary investigations revealed that the disruption resulted from a toxic mix of problems: the fatal accident, prevailing insecurity, unresolved examination modalities, and the late registration of candidates – the last of which affected the timely printing of question papers.
The public anger has been fierce. Parents complained that their children returned home after 10 pm, exhausted and disoriented. A viral video showed students in Ibadan writing their Agricultural Science practical at 9 pm in near‑darkness, using mobile phone flashlights to see their answer sheets. On X, formerly Twitter, a user whose sister was caught in the delay wrote: “My sister left for her WAEC exam since morning and still hadn’t returned home – she called around 6 pm saying the paper had just arrived.”
WAEC said it had quietly abandoned the newly introduced 24‑hour delivery window, which was designed to prevent exam‑paper leakages, and returned to the traditional 48‑hour distribution cycle. The compressed timeline was intended to shorten the time window during which rogue actors could intercept examination materials, but it proved “grossly inadequate” given the poor state of federal highways and the additional security burdens. Insiders said field workers were being forced to drive through the night without adequate rest, a practice that contributed directly to the Gombe tragedy.
The council assured the public that the situation had stabilised. Examinations ran smoothly on Friday, June 5, and WAEC promised that the remaining papers would be concluded without further disruption. “While we mourned our fallen colleagues, our team of indefatigable staff worked around the clock to deploy emergency contingency measures to ensure that the examination was still conducted in the affected areas,” the statement read.
But for thousands of candidates, the damage is done. The 2026 May/June WASSCE, which began on April 21, is scheduled to end on June 19. For those who sat papers under torchlight, the memory of writing a national examination in the dark will not fade quickly.
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