“Hello dear,
You have done your part. Nice investigation. Now, its (sic) my turn to do my thing. Mind people you step into (sic)… you are in Nigeria, not USA. Expect us. Thank you.”
That was the message sent to our correspondent around 1pm on Wednesday after a report on exam malpractice being perpetrated in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination was published.
The sender’s identity number was encrypted as ‘CRACK MIND.’
PUNCH Metro had reported about how some pupils sitting the WASSCE being administered by the West African Examination Council cheated by subscribing to answer-peddling websites.
The websites, which boasted of getting questions prior to the time of the exams, advertised various rates for different subjects and urged pupils to subscribe in bulk to get discounts.
Testimonials of candidates who got excellent results after using the services of the operators were displayed on the sites.
Our correspondent had subscribed to five different websites for answers to the Commerce exam which was written on Tuesday.
The websites are examcrown.com, examsort.com, naijaclass.com, waecexpo.com and guruslodge.com
The operators of the sites demanded that MTN recharge cards be sent to their phone numbers, which are 09069072051, 07063609771, 08167593558, 07032581573 and 08154766482.
They demanded N400 for link to the answer websites and N800 for direct SMS of the answers to candidates’ phones.
While examcrown and examsort later resorted to Internet bulk SMS, using their codenames, EXAMCROWN and EXAMSORT, to update our correspondent, others used telephone numbers, including 08101038699, 07068088239.
True to their words, the websites delivered answers to both the objective and theory questions through text messages and their portals.
Shortly after the findings of PUNCH Metrowere published on Wednesday, one of the website operators threatened to deal with our correspondent for writing the report.
The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, asked our correspondent to report the threat to the nearest police station.
He said although the sender’s contact was encrypted, the police could investigate and get all the suspects arrested.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Chike Oti, said the threat should not be taken lightly.
He said, “I have informed the state Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi, about your case and he has asked that you come to the command to report for investigation to begin into the matter. Upon their arrest, their activities will be revealed. That way, we will be able to annul their plans. Threats should not be taken lightly because a lot of journalists have been killed this way.”
Meanwhile, some readers of PUNCH Onlinehave blamed WAEC for the leakage of exam questions, saying the body should check itself.
A poster, who identified herself only as Abigail, said WAEC officials sometime sent account numbers to school owners, demanding kickbacks.
No comments:
Post a Comment