JAMB REACTED TO A STRANGE SNAKE THAT SWALLOWED MONEY IN JAMB OFFICE

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has reacted to a bizarre report trending of a snake swallowing N36 million from the vault of one of its state branches.The board said the case was that of pure criminality and fraud on
the part of one of its staff.

Nigerians on social media have also been reacting to the
disappearance of the cash in JAMB’s Makurdi office.
According to a report in online, a mystery snake was said to have sneaked into the accounts office of the Board in Makurdi and ‘stolen’ N36 million cash. It was also reported that a team of
auditors was dispatched to different state offices of JAMB to
take inventory of the sold and unsold scratch cards and recover whatever money that might have either been generated or mismanaged during the period of the sale.

JAMB candidates usually purchase
scratch cards to gain access to the
Board’s website for either
registration or for checking their
admission status. But new reforms
introduced by JAMB registrar,
Ishaq Oloyede, who assumed office
in 2016, ended the use of scratch
cards, replacing it with more
efficient and effective platforms.

“A sales clerk, Philomina Chieshe,
told JAMB registrar and his team
that she could not account for N36
million she made in previous years
before the abolition of scratch
cards. In the course of
interrogation, Philomena denied
the allegations that she stole the
money but confessed that her
housemaid connived with another
JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to
“spiritually” (through a snake)
steal the money from the vault in
the account office”, the report
said.

The spokesperson of the board,
Fabian Benjamin, said there was
indeed a case of fraud and
criminality in the Benue State
office.

According to him, the registrar demanded the
sale of scratch cards should be stopped in order
to curb corruption.

“It is natural for the office to account for what
they have after the sale of scratch cards has
been stopped and we discovered that lots of
money was missing in Markurdi and other
offices,” Mr. Benjamin said.
He said investigation was ongoing to determine
the kind of punishment that will be given to
the suspect(s) involved.

“There are procedures in the civil service so
the whole thing is still under investigation. She
was queried, she appeared before disciplinary
committee, although she confessed that money
was missing and a snake swallowed it.
Unfortunately, she is calling one Joan’s name
which did not appear in the investigation at all.
Joan only recommended a house help for her,”
he said.

“Of course, the management did not believe the
story. She is just trying to put an excuse
forward. These are things the registrar is trying
to unravel to put the board on the right footing.
We had a case where one of the staff said he
had an accident on his way and the scratch
cards got burnt but only for us to discover that
they were used because they all had serial
numbers,” he said.

Apparently reacting to the bizarre report, the
anti graft agency, the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, on its official twitter
page @officialEFCC jocularly said: ”an eagle
(EFCC) shows no mercy for money-swallowing
snake(s).”

A Twitter user ”Mr. aye Dee” said: ”I wonder if
people realise the hungry snake that wanted to
register for JAMB but ended up eating N36
million from the JAMB office in Makurdi did
this prior to 2015.
“This naughty snake was discovered ONLY
because Buhari’s admin decided to audit
finances of JAMB offices nationwide.”

Another user, Imoh Umoren, said: ”This is a
strange country. November 2008: satellite we
built for 40 billion disappears. September 2004:
Ship laden with 30,000 barrels of oil disappears
August 2017: Rats chase the President out of
office February 2018: Snake swallows 36
million from JAMB. I need a beer.”

A user, Wale Adetona, said: “What kind of
snake entered JAMB’s office and didn’t bite the
gateman or the clerk but went ahead to
swallow N36 million?”