The Education Toll Gate: Why President Tinubu Must Cancel The Arbitrary ₦4,000 WAEC/NECO Verification Fee

Access to basic education is a fundamental right, not a luxury or a commercial profit venture. The recent joint announcement by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) introducing a mandatory ₦4,000 result verification fee for students applying to tertiary institutions represents an objectionable financial burden on Nigerian families.

​Having already paid substantial registration fees to sit for the May/June 2026 secondary school examinations, over 1.95 million candidates are now expected to pay again simply to prove the validity of results issued by those exact same bodies. At ₦4,000 per student, this policy stands to extract approximately ₦7.84 billion from households already struggling with severe inflation, rising transport costs, and skyrocketing school fees.

Examining the operational justification reveals severe flaws in the policy's rationale:

​Absurdity of Self-Verification Tariffs: Requiring students to pay a private toll to verify documents issued directly by the host examination body creates an unjustifiable administrative barrier. The cost of modern digital verification infrastructure should be absorbed within existing operational budgets, not passed onto young applicants.

​The Benchmark set by JAMB: Under prudent management, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) previously lowered its examination fees from ₦5,000 to ₦3,500 while generating surplus remittances for the Federal Government. Examination agencies can maintain fiscal health without continually raising tariffs on candidates.

​Continental Comparison & State Responsibility: Nearby nations such as Ghana and Sierra Leone fully fund or heavily subsidize secondary school exit examination fees for their citizens. Rather than permitting extra-budgetary levies, the federal government should move toward subsidizing academic certification to keep vulnerable youth from dropping out of school.

​President Bola Tinubu must intervene immediately to suspend and cancel this ₦4,000 verification fee. Examination bodies should exist to facilitate educational advancement, protect academic integrity, and support human capital development—not serve as revenue-generating entities that penalize young Nigerians seeking a better future.