The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) has announced the release of the exam results for candidates who took the tests in May/June 2023.

However, candidates from eight states will face a delay in accessing their performance outcomes due to outstanding debts owed to the exam body. The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is taking a firm stance in collecting these debts and has displayed this determination by clearly indicating the indebtedness on candidates' result pages.

Patrick Areghan, the Head of the National Office at WAEC, revealed this decision during a press conference held in Lagos on Monday, August 7, 2023. As per the announcement, candidates from the affected states attempting to check their results on Tuesday discovered that their results were marked as 'indebted' in all subjects.

Although the specific states were not disclosed by Areghan, he highlighted Zamfara and Niger as among the states with the highest debts.

The detailed breakdown of the owed amounts both individually and collectively was not provided by Areghan during the briefing. However, sources suggest that the accumulated debts amount to millions of Naira.

Areghan noted, "Zamfara and Niger states are the highest debtors. Again, Zamfara did not present any candidate for this year’s WASSCE.""

“Candidates who have fulfilled their financial obligations to the Council can access their results on the Council’s website: www.waecdirect.org.

"After accessing their results, candidates can visit www.waec.org to confirm, share and download digital copies of their certificates! Copies of the Result Listing will be sent to schools shortly.

“I need to restate that the results of candidates sponsored by states indebted to the Council will not be released now until they pay up. We appeal to them to do so to enable the affected schools/candidates to access their results.”