Atiku Abubakar
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar says the suspension of the 2020 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) by the Federal Government will put the country at more risks.
In a statement on Friday, Atiku said, “This is perilous because Foreign Direct Investments and other economic indicators are tied to the educational indexes of nations”.
“Already, Nigeria lags behind other African nations in crucial indices, like school enrolment, pass rates, and out of school children. This action will further create chaos in the public education system and exacerbate an already bad situation,” he said.
He pointed out that 1.5 million Nigerian youths write the West African Senior School Certificate Examination annually, adding that the abrupt cancellation of “this examination is to set back our nation’s youth, and place them behind their contemporaries in other West African nations.”
“I urge this administration to take into account that the lives they are trying to save will be further put at risk, because if this policy is not reversed, tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, will breach social distancing rules to cross over to neighbouring West African nations to write their WASSCE, rather than miss a year,” the statement partly read.
He noted that the move by the Nigerian government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic is not in the nation’s best interest.
This, he noted, is because the Federal Government unilaterally took the decision “without consultation, and thoughtful action,” arguing that it “may be counterproductive.”
On the way forward, Atiku wants the Federal and state governments to mobilise all available public and private infrastructures including primary schools, stadia, and cinemas, for the examinations.
He added that the government’s directives on social distancing will be achieved while candidates sit for their examination, thus describing the move as “a win-win scenario.”
In doing this, he also called on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to “prevail on WAEC to have a staggering examination with a different set of questions for each shift.”
