Nigeria, Oct. 1 -- The Akwa Ibom State Government has disputed PREMIUM TIMES' report placing the state 36th among the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in the 2026 National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examination, but has yet to provide the official examination data it says contradicts the ranking.

The state government, through its Commissioner for Information, Aniekan Umanah in a release from the State Ministry of Information and the Commissioner for Education, Ubong Umoh in a radio programme, falsely claimed that the report was fake.

Both officials insisted that NECO had not released results from 83 of 214 public-school examination centres in the state.

However, despite repeated requests from PREMI...