"Disastrous Glitch" – Education Consultant Alex Onyia Alleges WAEC 2026 Results Hit by Major CBT Error

"Disastrous Glitch" – Education Consultant Alex Onyia Alleges WAEC 2026 Results Hit by Major CBT Error

The controversy erupted hours after WAEC announced the release of the 2026 WASSCE results, with Onyia taking to X to voice his alarm. "WAEC, you can't toy with our children's destinies," he wrote, demanding that the results be withdrawn and corrected immediately or face a court challenge.

His post quickly gathered thousands of views and dozens of replies, many from parents and students who echoed his concerns. Onyia's criticism comes just months after WAEC's National Office head, Dr Amos Josiah Dangut, promised there would be no repeat of the glitches that forced the council to temporarily withdraw the 2025 WASSCE results over a flawed paper-serialisation system.

Dangut had assured that the identified issues had been corrected and disclosed that CBT adoption grew from fewer than 40 schools in 2025 to about 450 in 2026.

The allegations are particularly significant given Onyia's track record of challenging Nigerian exam bodies over system failures. During the 2025 UTME crisis, he publicly disputed JAMB's account that widespread score anomalies were a mere "glitch," calling it instead a flawed fraud-detection algorithm and pointing to candidates whose scores swung wildly between sittings.

He also reported hearing from over 100 students who described suicidal thoughts over their results, an account that pushed JAMB to set up a probe of thousands of affected candidates. JAMB's subsequent review vindicated several of his concerns. This track record has likely contributed to why his latest post on the WAEC results has spread quickly among parents and candidates.

The new results have come with their own set of challenges beyond the alleged glitch. WAEC announced that 61.54% of candidates obtained credits in at least five subjects including English and Mathematics, a drop of 1.42 percentage points from 2025.

Additionally, 167,486 candidates representing 8.59% of total candidates had their results withheld over examination malpractice.

The result portal also experienced early technical difficulties, with many candidates reporting errors such as "Result not available for this candidate" and "Result checker card has been used by another candidate".

As of the time of this report, WAEC has not publicly responded to Onyia's latest allegations, though the council has previously dismissed a viral list of schools whose results were withheld as "FAKE NEWS".

Onyia's threat of court action suggests that the controversy is likely to escalate, especially if affected students and parents continue to raise concerns. Meanwhile, some candidates may be left waiting as 116,031 results are still being processed by the examination body.