Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Drama, Confusion as WAEC Releases Conflicting Results-August 30, 2011

CANDIDATES WHO WROTE WAEC EXAMINATION( MAY/JUNE 2011) ARE ADVICE TO RE-CHECK THEIR RESULTS AGAIN

From Aisha Wakaso in Minna
There was confusion yesterday
in Minna, Niger State, as
candidates who sat for the May/
June
Senior Secondary School
Certificate Examination (SSSCE)
had two conflicting results of the
same exam released to them, in
the last two weeks, by the West
African Examinations Council
(WAEC).
The examination body had, two
weeks ago, posted on its website
results of the examination.
However, the council’s office in
Minna went ahead at the
weekend to post another set of
results which were totally
different from the earlier set
released thereby forcing the
candidates to troop to the state
WAEC office to ask questions on
the authentic result.
When the candidates discovered
the conflict in the results, which
mostly had worst grades than
the first one posted, they
gathered themselves in large
numbers and went to the state
branch of the examination body
to verify which of the two
results was authentic.
THISDAY spoke to some of the
candidates at the WAEC premises
yesterday. They said the
examination body graded some
of them on subjects they did not
register for neither did they sit
for them.
According to one of them who
craved anonymity, he had
conflicting results from
Government Secondary School,
Minna. He said in the first result,
he had “B” in two subjects, “C” in
six subjects, including English
Language and a “D” in
mathematics.
But when he went back to print
another copy of the result, he
discovered that the council had
changed the results and had
posted “B” in one subject, “C” in
three subjects, while he made
“D” in three others, an “E” and an
“F” in another subject.
Unlike his performance in the
first result that the council had
posted, the candidate recorded
C5 in English Language and D7 in
mathematics, but in the new
result, WAEC posted D7 and F9
respectively for the candidate in
the two subjects.
Another female candidate from
Government Girls Secondary
School, Minna, did not only have
her result changed, she was
given grades in two subjects she
did not sit for. Aside from this,
her grades in English Language
and mathematics were equally
different from the former result
released.
When THISDAY contacted the
Branch Controller of WAEC in
Minna on the issues raised by
the candidates, he said the
problem affected almost all the
candidates and advised that all
enquiries on the matter should
be directed to the head office of
the council.
“Please you may have to go to
our headquarters in Lagos. This
is not a local problem and there
is no branch controller in other
affected states that can talk to
you over the course of the
problem,” he said.
But on a second thought, the
controller, who declined to
disclose his name, added: “All I
can say is that, the problem has
been rectified. Candidates can go
to the cafe and re-check their
results; they will see that what
they have on our website now
tallies with the initial results
released.”

Atiku Reacts To last UN Abuja Office Bomb Attack- August 30, 2011

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
The Former Vice-President, Atiku
Abubakar, has condemned the
suicide bomb attack on the UN
office in Abuja, maintaining that
mindless violence is counter-
productive to peace and
progress.
Reacting to the latest bomb
incident in the nation’s federal
capital in a press statement, the
former vice-president noted that
indiscriminate violence against
the innocent could not solve any
problem in any society.
According to him, there was no
alternative to dialogue and
peaceful resolution of conflicts.
He explained that, as an
international institution,
committed to the peace and well-
being of humanity, the United
Nations staff should be
protected at all times rather than
being put in harm’s way for
whatever reason.
Abubakar argued that violence
against the innocent desecrated
the principle on the sanctity of
life, which had been preached by
all religions of the world.
He warned that uncontrolled
violence could paralyse the
society, thereby, undermining
the pursuit of happiness.
On the appalling new security
challenges currently confronting
Nigeria, the former vice-
president had welcomed the
involvement of international
experts to unravel the extent,
nature, dimension and global
connection to these incidents of
bomb attacks, which were
relatively new in Nigeria.
He said the seeming paralysis in
the nation’s response to these
challenges called for global
collaboration because Nigeria
was dealing with a hitherto
unknown crime of this
destructive scale.
In his words, “our security men
are not