Kano's NECO Results: A Celebration That Misses the Mark

For the second year in a row, the Kano State Government has celebrated what it calls a first-place finish in the National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE).

Reacting to this year's results, Governor Abba Yusuf said Kano again emerged as the top state after 74,413 candidates got at least five credits, including in English Language and Mathematics.

Candidates who want to gain admission into Nigerian universities usually need at least five credits in the SSCE, including English Language and Mathematics. This five-credit benchmark is a good way to check which candidates meet the academic requirements for university admission.

But looking closely at the 2026 NECO performance numbers tells a different story about Kano’s results.

Kano’s True Performance

While Kano had the highest number of candidates who met the five-credit benchmark, it also had the highest number of candidates who did not meet this requirement.

This is due to the fact that Kano had the most candidates sitting for the examination. According to NECO, 162,302 candidates sat the exam in Kano, which is significantly more than the 97,771 candidates in Lagos, the state with the second-highest number.

However, the figures show that Kano’s success rate of 45.85 percent was below the national average of 60.13 percent. This also shows a drop in Kano’s success rate compared to its 2025 performance in the same examination.

When ranked by performance, Kano came in 31st out of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), down from 29th place last year.

The Same Celebration, The Same Problem

Just like last year, the Kano State Government sees the number of candidates who passed as a success, ignoring the fact that there were more candidates who failed than those who passed.

In the 2025 exam, Kano had 68,159 candidates who got at least five credits, including in English and Mathematics, the highest number among all states. However, these candidates made up only 49.84 percent of the 136,762 candidates presented by the state for the exam.

This percentage ranked Kano 29th among the 36 states and the FCT in the 2025 exams.

2026 Performance Is Worse

Meanwhile, a look at the 2026 results shows that Kano did worse than last year.

This year, 162,302 candidates took the exam in Kano, with 74,413 or 45.85 percent obtaining at least five credits, including English and Mathematics.

The number of candidates from Kano who failed the exam also rose from 68,603 last year to 87,889 this year. Still, the number of successful candidates increased from 68,159 to 74,413.

This can be explained by the increase in the number of candidates, which rose by 25,540 from 136,762 in 2025 to 162,302 in 2026.

National Performance

PREMIUM TIMES also reported that the national performance in the 2026 NECO results dropped slightly compared to the 2025 results.

According to the results announced by NECO’s Registrar, Dantani Wushishi, a professor, 58.67 percent of candidates who took the exam got five credits and above, including English Language and Mathematics.

Out of 1,371,992 candidates who sat for the examination, 804,948 or 58.67 percent passed with the required credits. Last year, 60.26 percent of candidates passed with at least five credits, including English Language and Mathematics.