Kano’s NECO lead masks below-average performance, analysis says

Kano’s claim to have led states in the 2026 NECO Senior School Certificate Examination is based on the number of successful candidates rather than the proportion of candidates who passed, an analysis by Premium Times said. Governor Abba Yusuf said Kano had again emerged as the leading state after 74,413 candidates obtained at least five credits, including English Language and Mathematics. The benchmark is generally required for admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions.

However, Kano also had the country’s largest number of candidates who failed to meet it, reflecting the state’s unusually high examination entry. NECO figures showed that 162,302 candidates sat the examination in Kano, compared with 97,771 in Lagos, the state with the second-highest number of candidates. Kano’s 74,413 successful candidates represented 45.85 per cent of its total.

That rate was below the national average and placed Kano 31st among the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The state had ranked 29th in 2025. Kano’s performance also declined from last year’s rate.

In 2025, 68,159 of the 136,762 candidates presented by the state met the five-credit benchmark, representing 49.84 per cent. The number of candidates who failed rose from 68,603 last year to 87,889 this year. The increase in successful candidates, from 68,159 to 74,413, was accompanied by an increase of 25,540 in the total number of candidates.

Nationally, 804,948 of 1,371,992 candidates met the benchmark in 2026, according to figures announced by NECO Registrar Dantani Wushishi.