The National Examination Council has said that the recent postponement of its examination for private candidates was due to the Federal Government’s decision to declare a public holiday.

The body also dismissed the insinuation that this was the third time it postponed the examination, describing it as a social media hoax and explaining that it had not released its timetable up until its publications appeared in the print and broadcast media on Wednesday.

Calling on candidates to always check NECO’s official website and their personal email to get information, as opposed to relying on the social media, Abdul said, “This is the first time it has been postponed. We scheduled it to hold from November 19 to December 19. We had never released any timetable before then. The information that was passed around before now is incorrect. That happens a lot on social media. That is why we refer people to our website to download the updated timetable. We sent emails and text messages to candidates, just to make sure that they got correct information and no one missed a paper.”