Students in public secondary schools in Niger State are currently unable to access their NECO May/June SSCE results as the examination body has withheld the results of the students due to debts owed by the government.
The NECO May/June SSCE results were released on the 27th of August 2019.
Students bemoaned their inability to access their results in order to attend Post-UTME screenings of the universities of their choice.
The Niger State Government has admitted that they are owning the examination body N470 million adding that they have paid N150 million.
The Permanent Secretary of the Niger State Ministry of Education, Abubakar Aliyu admitted that they are owning the examination body but appealed for consideration to enable the students to access their results especially those due for post UTME screenings.
“The state government has been paying NECO and WAEC for its students from the previous government and the arrangement has always been that when the government has funds, we pay installmentally.
“NECO is owned N400 million this year and the government has commenced the payment. Last week Friday, we remitted N150 million to them and we are still negotiating with them to release the result but they have not. Hopefully, they may release it today (Monday).”
Aliyu declared that the government does not have enough money to give to NECO at once assuring that they will pay whenever there are available funds.
“For us, as a government, we do not have money to release at once but as a responsive government, we have a clear picture of what we want to do. Once we get money, we will make release them. Within the availability of resources, we have given what we have and we will continue to give them what we have until we clear the accumulated debts.”
The Permanent Secretary, however, stated that if the result is not released before the end of Monday, they will look for ways of sourcing for money to pay the debts adding that one of the Directors in the Ministry is still in a meeting with NECO as at the time of interviewing him.
The Information Officer, Mallam Azeez Sani could not be reached to state the stand of NECO as to why the examination body has not released the results of the students in the state.
