The Wa Circuit Court has sentenced Uthman Anuwar Sadat, a first-year student of the Nusrat Jahan Training College to 14 months imprisonment for impersonation during the just-ended Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Uthman Anuwar Sadat, aged 20, pleaded guilty to the charge of impersonation and was sentenced according to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Act, Act 719 (2016).
The Upper West Regional Controller of WAEC, Mr Donald Tuor, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa, said Uthman Anuwar Sadat impersonated one Daud Hamdan Kunateh, who registered to write the BECE as a private candidate.
He said Kunateh was currently at large and added that efforts were underway by the Police to arrest and prosecute him.
Mr Tuor explained that the convict was arrested following a thorough surveillance on him of his candidacy after he recurrently reported to the examination hall late after the other candidates were searched and their admission notices inspected.
“Usually, in admitting candidates into the exams hall, we inspect their admission notices and also search them. But this guy would run into the examination hall after his colleagues had been searched.
At the time examination officials would be busy sharing the examination material so they were not scrutinising his admission notice as they should, ” the Regional Controller said.
He indicated that the repeated lateness of the suspect raised suspicion, which led the invigilators to put the spotlight on him, and during the Ghanaian Language paper (Dagaare) on Thursday, October 20, 2022, they queried him in respect of the details of his invoice, which he could not respond to.
“From there they shifted to the admission notice and realized that it was not his picture that was on it; the picture was different from his face and so they asked him a few more questions. His responses clearly revealed that he was writing for somebody else”, he added.
Mr Tuor commended the judge, His Lordship Mr Jonathan Avogo, for imposing a custodial sentence since in many such cases elsewhere the culprits were fined, which was not deterrent enough.
He also noted with satisfaction the dispatch with which the sentencing was done.
He also commended the Police for doing a very good job by being very professional and very objective saying, “They built a docket timeously and we went to court”.
Mr Tuor bemoaned the magnitude and complicated trend of examination malpractices and advised the public against engaging in any of such acts as they were against WAEC laws, human values, and inimical to the development of the country.
The private and school candidates wrote this year’s BECE concurrently with the private candidates in the Upper West Region sitting for their papers at a centre at the WAEC hall.
