A Lagos State High Court has voided the decision of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), to cancel the Senior School Certificate Examination result of a candidate.
In addition, the court ordered the council to pay the victim N10 million damages.
Justice Yetunde Pinheiro, in her landmark judgment in the case filed by Emmanuel Gbenga Akeredolu, declared WAEC’s cancellation of the claimant’s 2016 SSCE result as illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.
Pinheiro said that the council did not produce sufficient proof that the claimant indulged in any malpractice during the examination to warrant the cancellation of his result.
She also said that the “failure of the Defendant (WAEC) to first afford the Claimant an opportunity to defend himself either orally or in writing or howsoever in respect of the allegation leveled against him amounts to a violation of his fundamental right to fair hearing enshrined in Section 36 (1) of the 1999 Constitution.”
The court said that WAEC’s action also subjected the Claimant to “emotional trauma, embarrassment, humiliation, loss of self-esteem, hardship, inconvenience, disgrace, anguish and anxiety,” and caused him an academic setback as well as ”the loss of a whole academic year” which cannot be quantified in monetary terms.
The Claimant sued through his next friend (father), Engr. John Akeredolu, because he is a minor. (The Nation)