Between JAMB And The Snake

SIMBO OLORUNFEMI 

It was no surprise that in the desperation to dance away from the strong case made by JAMB on the clearly fake result put forward by one of the candidates in the last examination conducted by the body, some took to the predictable route of diverting attention away from the issue to the institution, throwing darts in the direction of JAMB and cancel it, as we are wont to.

In desperation, some latched onto the irrelevant report of ‘snake swallowing money’ as a whip to flog JAMB and conflate the issue. The cynical retort was: What do you expect from same organisation in which snake swallowed money? As usual, it was a case of running with a distorted version that best suits their preferred narrative. Some claimed it was JAMB which said that snake swallowed money. Not true. Some claimed, nothing was done about the incident. Again, not true.

What are the facts of the matter?

Before Prof Oloyede took office as Registrar of JAMB, they had a system in place which involved selling of scratch cards to candidates for access to its portal. Sales were being done through its offices across the nation.

When he assumed office in 2016, Oloyede moved to stop the use of scratch cards, starting with an audit of inventory across the offices and recovery of money generated from the sales.

It was upon a visit to the Makurdi office by Auditors that they found Staff who could not account for the proceeds from sale of cards there. The principal actor was Philomena who upon interrogation denied allegations that she stole the money, alleging that it was her housemaid that connived with another member of staff at JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to “spiritually” steal the money.

Her words: “I was one of the four sales clerks attached to JAMB office in Makurdi. My responsibility was to sell scratch cards to candidates and not involved in handling the revenues. It was the responsibility of Joan Asen and my other senior colleagues. I only remit money when am done selling the cards.

“Few months ago, there was issue of fraud in the Makurdi office. Auditors were sent from Abuja to carefully flip the record books of the office, to perhaps, ascertain the current state of affairs.

“The state Coordinator, Obilo, was not around when the audit team came. But in the course of the audit, N36 million was discovered to have been missing from the account. An investigation was launched. In the course of the investigation, it was discovered that Joan Asen, who is account staff and a lady outside JAMB have connived to steal the money.”

She was reported to have, in a confessional statement, said: “It was a mystery to me too. I have been saving the money in the bank, but I found it difficult to account for it. So I started saving it in a vault in the office. But each time I open the vault, I will find nothing. I became worried and surprised how the millions of Naira could be disappearing from the vault. I began to interrogate everybody in the house and office, and no one could agree on what might have happened to the money. I continued to press until my housemaid confessed. She said that the money disappeared “spiritually”. She said that a “mysterious snake” sneaked into the house and swallowed the money in the vault.”

This case of fraud, one of hundreds said to have been discovered, according to Prof Oloyede, was handed over to the EFCC by JAMB. The EFCC traced payments from Agents to the tune of N26.9 million to the account of Philomena, which she withdrew over time via ATM, while she provided payment tellers as evidence of deposit of some money into her Boss’ account. No snake was found to have been involved.

The EFCC charged Philomina Chieshe, the money in her custody and her boss, Samuel Umoru, the state coordinator to court on 8 counts. They were accused of conspiring between August 2014 and July 2016 to misappropriate funds belonging to JAMB. They were admitted to bail and the trial has been going on.

So the idea that JAMB once claimed that snake swallowed money is not factual. It is also not true that nothing was done. It was JAMB which found one of its officials to have allegedly committed fraud. That was before the current Registrar took office. The official, in a bid to prove innocence, came up with a cock and bull story, which obviously didn’t fly. She was arrested and charged to court.

How this has become a basis for villifying JAMB is what I don’t get. What connection it has with someone parading a fake result is quite strange. But it can’t be as strange as people jumping to the defence of an obvious fraud on the back of strange and dodgy arguments. Sneaky.