CLAIM: A viral report by Sahara Reporters claimed that Abia, Anambra, Edo states emerged as the best performing states in 2019 West African Examinations Council, while Katsina was among the bottom five
CONCLUSION: FALSE; the West African Examinations Council did not release any list of “best performing states” ranking. It is best to disregard it.
FULL STORY:
Four days ago, Sahara Reporters published a story with the headline “Buhari’s Katsina Among Bottom Five As Abia, Anambra, Edo Emerge Best Performing States In 2019 West African Examinations Council”. The story goes on to list the best performing states in the annual exams; an claims that WAEC released the ranking.
“The chart, as released by the examination board, ranked the performances of all 36 states including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja in the country“, the newspaper says.
Social media platforms ran amuck with the story with established handles making jest of the claim, assuaging the results to alleged absence of the President’s WAEC certificate. Others retorted how the worst performing states have more special centres…
VERIFICATION
Our findings revealed that the exact list was also reported by Daily post in 2018 and it is still being circulated in 2019. Media outlets like the Punch newspaper also reported the story as far back as 2016.
Not only that, WAEC denies the veracity of these claims through its official twitter handle and urges people to disregard the list.
Although, it seems Godwin Obaseki of Edo state is clearly elated over news. The Vanguard publication on August 16 remarks that the Governor commended the efforts of all stakeholders in the education sector.
“Our state retained the third position it occupied in the 2018 ranking and that shows we sustained the tempo, but we can do better by raising the bar and we are determined to do better in subsequent rankings,” he remarked.
He further asserts that his administration has commenced the review of the result and is re-strategizing to lead the pack of best performing states in subsequent national examinations.
While it is good that the news spurred the Edo State governor to improve the state’s educational sector, the news is still FALSE and should not be promoted as true.
CONCLUSION:
The West African Examinations Council did not release any list of “best performing states” ranking. It is safe therefore to conclude that since this purported list did not emanate from WAEC and makes mention of “Buhari’s Katsina”, it must have been published by persons deliberately misinforming the public so as to undermine the current government. Consequently, it is best to disregard it.
