Martin Kpebu, lawyer for the plaintiffs who have sued WAEC for withholding their 2024 WASSCE examination results has accused the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) of neglecting due diligence in the administration of their duties.
On December 30 last year, WAEC announced that it had withheld the results of approximately 10,000 WASSCE candidates across multiple subjects, citing alleged examination malpractices and irregularities by the candidates.
According to Martin Kpebu, WAEC is only speculating about the alleged examination malpractice as the Council had failed to produce a single charge against is clients.
This, he believes is a dereliction of the fairness that the examination body is expected to demonstrate.
“The problem is that WAEC is not realizing to agree with this matter in a constitutional context as well. The constitution in Article 23 require that administrative bodies act fairly and reasonably.
“As we speak now, one month on, WAEC is not able to tell my clients that you copy, you had foreign material, they cannot tell the specific crime.
“WAEC is engaging in speculative cancellation of results. I’m telling you that we went to court and finished the matter,” he stated in an interview on JoyNews, February 21, 2025.
Kpebu’s comment comes after the Accra High Court on February 20, 2025 dismissed an application by WAEC which sought a stay of execution on an earlier ruling that ordered WAEC to immediately release withholding results of the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
On January 30, 2025, the High Court ruled in favour of four students who on behalf of all affected candidates sued WAEC four the unlawful withholding of their results.
The court ordered WAEC to release the results without any prejudicial footnotes, stating that the council’s justification for withholding them was ambiguous and inconsistent.
The court further held that keeping the results indefinitely could hinder the academic and professional progress of the students.
Subsequently, WAEC filed for a stay of execution at the High Court seeking to suspend the ruling.
However, during a hearing on February 20, 2025, presiding judge Justice Ali Baba Abature dismissed the application, ruling that WAEC had failed to provide sufficient justification for its actions.
But Head of Legal Affairs for WAEC, Reverend Victor Brew said the Council will appeal the ruling by the High Court at the Court of Appeal.
“We plan to repeat the stay of execution in the Court of Appeal which is part of the entire court process…We are going to explore that option,” he said in an interview on Joy News on February 21.
However, Martin Kpebu has disagreed with WAEC’s decision to challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal.
High court rejects WAEC’s stay of execution application; orders release of results
