The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has debunked criticisms by the 2023 Labour Party Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over the early resumption time for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

Recall Obi in a post on his official X handle on Sunday, publicly condemned reports of JAMB asking candidates, generally teenagers, to travel to examination centres as early as 6:30 am despite security concerns, describing the situation as “reckless”.

This came after there have been reports of minors writing the exams involvement in alleged accidents and kidnapping.

However, JAMB debunked Obi’s criticisms stating that while candidates are expected to arrive by 6:30 am for verification and clearance, the examinations officially begin at 8:00 am.

According to the exam body, the early arrival was needed to prevent late-coming, which could disorganized the exercise.

“Your Excellency, I must assert that our examination is scheduled to commence at 8:00am, not 6:00 am,” JAMB wrote on X.

Adding that: “While verification and other clearance processes begins at 6:30am, it is imperative that candidates are afforded adequate time to settle in before the exam begins.

“Given the tendencies often observed among Nigerians to arrive late when a start time is set without space for eventuality, this structured timeline is essential to ensure that all candidates are properly prepared and can perform to the best of their abilities.” It concluded