West African Examination Council, WAEC, has denied allegations from the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB that the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Examination bodies extorted millions from the examination bodies.
Amos Dangut, head of WAEC’s Nigeria office, denied claims that the committee demanded money from the examination body, telling DAILY POST, “I am the head of WAEC. I am not aware of anything like that.”
JAMB had accused the lawmakers of demanding millions of naira from the bodies in charge of national examinations to carry out their oversight functions.
The committee were further accused of having pressured agencies to surrender portions of their internally generated revenue, IGR, under the guise of legislative oversight.
It all started in March 2025 when the house of representatives resolved to investigate a technical error that compromised the results of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Adewale Adebayo, a lawmaker from Osun state.
As part of the probe, the committee requested JAMB to submit documents covering its 2023, 2024 and 2025 budgets and IGR, details of revenue generation and budget implementation, evidence of remittances to the federation account, and corresponding bank statements.
And JAMB was said to have failed to provide the documents within the stipulated timeframe.
This led to the committee writing the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and the accountant-general of the federation, AGF, requesting the board’s financial records and remittance details.
For the oversight exercise, JAMB facilitated logistics for the committee to inspect its underage examination programme which was scheduled to hold in three centres — Abuja, Lagos and Owerri.
According to documents JAMB transferred N62.7 million to the committee on October 8 to cover the exercise.
However, due to the committee’s legislative schedule, members were only able to visit one centre in Abuja.
As a result, N43 million was refunded to JAMB on November 11 via the account number TSA 0020125461019, after the board reluctantly provided its bank account for the transfer.
And national media outlets, including AIT and Arise Television, reported the committee’s oversight visit
On October 29, a JAMB delegation led by Mufutau Bello, a director in the registrar’s office, appeared before the committee to represent Registrar Ishaq Oloyede. The officials, however, walked out after lawmakers rejected their request for a closed-door session.
Oloyede later appeared before the committee on November 16, apologised for the incident and submitted the requested documents.
Following his appearance, JAMB returned the funds to the committee on November 17, while the investigation was still ongoing.
The committee refunded the money again on November 19, stating that it had no basis to retain funds for activities it did not carry out.
Extortion allegations
After the refunds, reports swirled, alleging that the committee extorted examination bodies, including the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, National Examinations Council, NECO, National Business and Technical Examinations Board, NABTEB, and the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies, NBAIS.
A committee member, who pleaded not be mentioned, said the panel neither requested nor retained funds improperly.
“If the intention were to extort or divert money, there would have been no refunds — certainly not twice. These were traceable bank transfers, not cash payments,” the lawmaker said.
When contacted, JAMB spokesperson Fabian Benjamin declined to comment on the financial transactions.
“I am the information officer; I don’t handle anything that has to do with money,” he said.