FNA News
25 November 2025 | Abuja
NMCN breaks silence: launches investigation into CBT exam failures amid public outcry
Nigeria’s Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMCN) has broken its silence on the recent professional examination crisis, announcing a formal investigation into the “massive failure” recorded in the May and November 2025 licensing tests.
In a circular issued Tuesday and signed by Registrar, Alhaji Alhassan Ndagi, the council acknowledged the severity of the results, stating it had “observed with grave concern the massive failure … with particular emphasis on the November 2025 examination”. The announcement is the regulator’s first public response since the November Public Health Nursing (RPHN) results triggered nationwide outrage, with only 9% of nearly 2,000 candidates passing and several leading institutions recording zero successful students.
The move follows weeks of sustained protests on social media, open letters, and a widely circulated threat of class-action litigation from software engineer and Educare CEO Alex Onyia. Candidates have consistently blamed repeated technical breakdowns in the computer-based testing (CBT) platform, including frozen screens, questions that failed to load, and timers running while examinees were unable to proceed.
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As part of its inquiry, the NMCN has directed all heads of nursing training institutions to submit, by 5 December:
- A complete list of academic staff, their current NMCN licence numbers, and the subjects they teach;
- First-year, first-semester results for candidates who sat the November examinations (applicable to colleges of nursing and post-basic programmes).
Speaking to FNA News, a nurse advocate, Mr Odunlade welcomed the investigation but expressed scepticism about its initial focus. “Requesting lecturers’ credentials and first-semester scores looks like a pre-emptive attempt to blame schools and students instead of addressing the undeniable CBT platform collapse witnessed across centres,” he said.
Senior faculty members, speaking anonymously, described the directive as “defensive” and voiced fears that institutions could be scapegoated for systemic failures in the examination technology.
The council has yet to address the specific allegations of technical malfunction or respond to demands for the release of individual mark-sheets and an independent audit of the CBT system.
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