When 16-year-old Tobi James entered the examination hall at 7:45 pm to write his WASSCE English paper in May 2025, he had not eaten since noon. The hall was dark, the fans were not working, and the security guard had gone home. “I was scared, tired and could not even see clearly,” he said, his voice still shaky weeks later. “It felt like we were being punished, not examined.”
Tobi’s experience is not isolated. Across Nigeria, thousands of secondary school students took their 2025 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) papers in dimly lit and sometimes hazardous conditions, with many sitting as late as 8 pm. Now, a Lagos-based human rights lawyer, Evans Ufeli, has taken WAEC and the Ministry of Education to court, seeking N100 billion in damages for what he calls “a gross violation of the fundamental rights of Nigerian students.”
Experts say the psychological toll on students may be more profound than most realise. According to child psychologist Dr Uju Onwuzuruike, exposing students, especially teenagers, to such stressful and unsafe environments can lead to long-term trauma. “These children are at a fragile developmental stage,” she said. “Asking them to perform under those conditions is not just unfair; it is emotionally damaging. We are likely to see increased cases of anxiety, low academic confidence, and even depression.”
Parents, too, are reeling from the shock. Mrs Adebimpe Salami, whose daughter wrote her paper under torchlight, said she could not sleep that night. “My child came home crying. She said her hands were shaking throughout the examination. Is this what we call Education in Nigeria?”
Beyond the emotional impact lies a more troubling reality: Nigeria’s broken educational infrastructure. In many rural and even urban examination centres, basic facilities such as electricity, security, and the presence of invigilators were missing or severely compromised. In some schools, students reportedly used phone flashlights and candlelight to see their question papers.
“This is not just about WAEC,” said educationist and former principal, Mr. Dominic Eze. “It reflects the rot in our education system, lack of planning, failure in logistics, and zero empathy for the students. How do you expect a child to excel in those conditions?”
WAEC had blamed delays on security concerns and logistical bottlenecks, but Ufeli is not buying it. In his suit, he argues that neither fear of examination malpractice nor poor security excuses subjecting minors to what he describes as “inhumane and degrading treatment.”
Indeed, many of the affected students had to walk home in the dark, sometimes through unsafe streets. “We are lucky no tragedy happened,” said Mrs. Salami. “Do we have to wait for a student to be attacked before we take this seriously?”
Ufeli’s lawsuit, which seeks the reissue of affected papers and a public apology from WAEC and the Ministry of Education, may be the beginning of a reckoning. However, until genuine reform is implemented, Nigeria risks repeating the same cycle of neglect.
As Tobi said, “We did our best, but they failed us.”
Pseudonyms used to protect the identities of individuals.
