Former Vice President and 2027 presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has strongly condemned the Federal Government’s approval of a uniform ₦50,000 examination fee for WAEC and NECO candidates starting in 2027, alongside the recent tuition hike in Federal Unity Colleges.
In a press statement released on Sunday, July 12, 2026, by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku described the aggressive fee hikes as “cruel, economically insensitive, and fundamentally incompatible with the government’s constitutional responsibility to make education accessible to every Nigerian child.”
The sharp criticism follows an official memo dated June 18, 2026, signed by the Director of Senior Secondary Education at the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Adeniji Ibrahim. The memo directed both the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) to adopt a uniform rate, effectively jacking up registration costs from ₦27,500 and ₦30,000 respectively to a flat ₦50,000 per candidate.
Atiku lambasted the President Bola Tinubu-led administration for introducing these policies at a time when citizens are already dealing with severe economic constraints.
”It is unconscionable that at a time when Nigerian families are battling record inflation, soaring food prices, rising transportation costs, crippling electricity tariffs, stagnant incomes, and widespread unemployment, the administration has chosen to make education even more expensive,” Atiku said.
The former Vice President warned that pricing out the poor from basic secondary school certifications would exacerbate Nigeria’s already critical out-of-school population, which currently sits between 10.5 million and 15 million children.
Academically qualified, indigent students face a dual barrier, first battling insufficient capacity in tertiary institutions, and now being financially blocked from even sitting for the qualifying exams.
Warning against the long-term societal damage, Atiku stated that every child pushed out of school today becomes tomorrow’s vulnerable target for unemployment, criminal exploitation, and drug abuse.
By building financial walls around public education, the current government is cutting off the ultimate tool used by children from humble backgrounds to escape poverty.
Concluding his statement, Atiku urged President Tinubu to immediately freeze the implementation of the ₦50,000 exam fee and reverse the tuition hikes across Federal Unity Colleges.
He advised the Federal Government to look toward sustainable financing models and urgently convene a national stakeholders’ dialogue to reform public education infrastructure without passing the financial burden onto vulnerable Nigerian parents.
