New WAEC Registrar Amos Dangut Takes Office: What It Means for WASSCE Candidates

Dr Amos Josiah Dangut became the new WAEC Registrar and Chief Executive Officer on October 1, 2026, taking charge of the West African Examinations Council for a five-year term that runs to September 2031. He succeeds Alhaji Pateh Bah of The Gambia and becomes the Council’s 14th Registrar, according to a statement released on Friday by Damianus Ojijeogu, Head of Public Affairs at WAEC’s headquarters in Accra.

For Nigerian candidates, the appointment matters more than a routine leadership change. Dangut has been Head of the Nigeria National Office since October 2023, so the man now running the whole Council is the same official who oversaw the move to computer-based WASSCE papers in Nigeria and announced this year’s results in August.

A WAEC insider who started as an examiner in Jos

The Council says its governing body ratified Dangut’s appointment at its 74th annual meeting in Accra in March 2026, which explains why the handover came at the start of October rather than as a surprise. His career has been spent almost entirely inside the examination system. He first worked with WAEC as an examiner in 1994 while teaching at St Louis College, Jos, joined the Council’s staff in 1998, and went on to serve as an Assistant Registrar, Head of Examinations Security and Branch Controller before his posting as Nigeria’s Head of National Office.

He holds a Bachelor of Agriculture, a master’s degree and a PhD in Animal Science, and a Master of Education in Administration and Planning. He also sits on the executive board of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa as a regional representative.

Why the CBT WASSCE is likely to stay on the agenda

Dangut’s time in charge of the Nigeria office is closely tied to three changes students have already felt, namely the rollout of computer-based WASSCE papers, serialised question papers that give candidates the same questions in different orders, and a digital marking system for scripts. WAEC credited those measures when it released the 2026 WASSCE for school candidates in August, a year in which malpractice cases fell to their lowest level since 2019.

At that release, Dangut said the results of 167,486 candidates, or 8.59 per cent of those who sat the exam, “are being withheld in connection with various reported cases of examination malpractice”. That was down from 9.7 per cent in 2025, and a long way below the 22.83 per cent withheld in 2022. With the official behind those numbers now leading the Council across all five member countries, schools and candidates should expect CBT and anti-malpractice measures to be extended rather than rolled back, although WAEC hasn’t yet announced any new policy under the new Registrar.

What changes for candidates writing WAEC exams right now

Nothing changes immediately for anyone already registered. The WASSCE for private candidates, second series, is going ahead on its published timetable, and our WAEC GCE timetable 2026 guide has the paper dates, including English Language on October 17. Candidates whose 2026 results were withheld can still lodge complaints through the portal listed on WAEC Nigeria’s official website.

The announcement didn’t name a replacement as Head of the Nigeria National Office, which is the post Nigerian students deal with most directly for result releases and complaints. That appointment, and any statement from Dangut on the Council’s plans for the 2027 WASSCE, will be the next things to watch. Students also preparing for NECO can check how to check the 2026 NECO SSCE result while waiting.