Excluding 1.5m kids from WAEC’ll breed crimes, Afe Babalola tells FG

Founder of Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) has faulted the federal government’s decision to withdraw Nigerian students from participating in the 2019/2020 West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

The legal luminary while responding to the withdrawal of the country from this year’s WAEC for fear of coronavirus, said a year of idleness for 1.5 million excluded from the examination may breed frustration and promote criminality.

Speaking in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday, Balola added that the lives of 1.5 million students, who registered for the 2019/2020 WAEC may hang in the balance with the withdrawal of Nigeria from the external examination

He  claimed that  it was wrong for the country to have made such a sole decision due to the fear of COVID-19 when other participating nations have not withdrawn from the annual examination.

Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, had last week announced the federal government’s intention to withdraw Nigeria’s candidates from the examination due to the hazard posed by the spread of COVID-19.

 Speaking on the withdrawal, which he said was not well thought -out, the legal luminary said: “It is my firm belief that the future of these 1.5 million young Nigerians who have registered for WAEC should not be put in jeopardy. It is a well known fact that all schools, colleges and tertiary institutions in the country are currently shut down. 

“This affords the federal government the opportunity to use them for WAEC examination. What the government should do is to prepare the empty rooms for the WAEC examination – fumigate the halls and the premises, use face masks, provide sanitizers and ensure that WHO rules are obeyed to the letter. 

“WAEC law provides for a national committee of WAEC in all the five countries. With that at the back of our minds, one would have expected that this matter should have been taken up by the national committee of WAEC in Nigeria and the general body in Ghana before the declaration to withdraw Nigeria from taking the examination.”

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