The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has clarified that the ongoing 2025 UTME commences at 8am daily, not at 6 am or 6.30am as widely misunderstood.
Speaking in an interview on Saturday, Benjamin explained that while candidates are expected to arrive at their designated CBT centres by 6.30am for necessary pre-examination formalities, the examination proper does not start until 8am.
“Our exams (UTME) start at 8am. There is no exam by 6am or 6.30am,” Benjamin said. “If you are flying today and your exam is by 8am, you are advised to be at the airport an hour or so before that time.
“There is no examination at 6.30am. All exams start at 8 o’clock, but no one is expected to stroll to the examination hall by 8am without any pre-examination checks. We do this to guide these candidates."
He noted that announcing the exam time as 8am without adequate pre-arrival expectations would lead many candidates to arrive late.
“Once we tell them the examination is by 8am, they will show up at 8.30am or 10am and start telling us cock and bull stories. I know a reasonable number of them will come late even if it is fixed at 12pm,” he added.
Addressing concerns about candidates having to leave home very early to meet the check-in time, Benjamin maintained that daybreak across Nigeria typically occurs around 6am, making it safe enough for candidates to set out early.
“In any case, 6.30am anywhere in Nigeria is daybreak. I came out today at 6am, and it was as bright as anything. But I need to stress that the examination is not at 6am. The first session of our exams starts at 8 am.
“But candidates are expected to be at the centre from 6.30am. Some of them still come by 7am or 7.30am. But if you come to that centre 30 minutes late, you won’t sit the examination because they must have done some preliminaries that you won’t be able to do.”
“Do they want JAMB to build a centre for them in their backyards so they can write the exam there?” Benjamin queried.
“This is something someone does once a year. That same person would get to the airport by 4am if he were billed to travel to London and British Airways sets the check-in time at 4.30am. But when they come to Nigeria, they don’t want to make any sacrifice.”
He further explained that the 6.30am check-in arrangement applies to less than 10 per cent of the total number of candidates sitting for the examination.
“We have four schedules in a day. There is a schedule for an exam at 8 am, another at 11 am, another at 2 pm, and there is the last one at 3pm. Within this 10 per cent, the number of candidates who would need to travel one or two kilometres to their exam centres is less than one per cent. Most of these candidates scheduled for 8 am will stroll to their centres,” he said.
Benjamin also clarified that candidates are allowed to select their preferred examination towns during registration, ensuring that the centres assigned are within reasonable proximity.
“We have what we call examination towns. Within these towns, centres are clustered. Candidates are at liberty to choose their examination towns. If you are on the mainland of Lagos, there are many exam towns in that region. The way it is designed, we look at centres that are close to the towns these candidates have chosen, and we fix them in a nearby centre. It is a matter of proximity."
He added, “We know the transport system in Lagos is clumsy, but there is no town that is so far away from the centre that the candidate is going to write from. It is assumed by JAMB that the candidate has chosen a centre closest to them. We have put measures in place so that candidates don’t travel more than 1km to sit the examination. We quite understand the security situation. We don’t have centres built for everybody.”
Benjamin assured that in the future, as Nigeria’s infrastructure develops, the country could have an even more candidate-friendly system.
“When we develop like Qatar, Singapore and other developed countries, we will have centres for everyone,” he said.
Adamawa parents demand cancellation
Meanwhile, parents of candidates who sat for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board examination at the Modibbo Adama University Computer-Based Test Centre in Yola, Adamawa State, have demanded the cancellation of the exam following major disruptions caused by a power failure.
The parents, who protested at the centre on Friday, expressed outrage after the generator powering the computers ran out of fuel midway through the examination.
Sunday PUNCH gathered that for over 30 minutes, the candidates were left stranded, with their time ticking away after they had already logged into the system.
Speaking with our correspondent, a parent, Peter Vandu, said his daughter was unable to complete her examination due to the unexpected power outage.
He described the situation as unfair, calling on JAMB to cancel all results from the affected sessions
“We cannot allow our children’s future to be jeopardised because of negligence. My daughter was in the middle of her exam when everything shut down. JAMB must cancel the exercise at this centre and reschedule it, or we will seek legal redress,” Vandu said.
Several other parents shared a similar view, threatening to sue JAMB if the results from the disrupted sessions were released without rescheduling the exam.