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Mysterious snake swallows N36m in Nigeria

The amount was realised from the sale of scratch cards to JAMB candidates in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.

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The missing cash was uncovered by a team of auditors who were dispatched to different state offices of JAMB to take inventory of the sold and unsold scratch cards.

The cards, before it was abolished after reforms, used it to gain access to the Board’s website for either registration or to check their admission status, according to Daily Post.

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When auditors visited the Makurdi office of JAMB 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.

Philomena confessed that it was her housemaid that connived with another JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to “spiritually” steal the money from the vault in the accounts office.

She said: “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.

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“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.”

Philomina in her confessional statement said that Joan Asen and her accomplices confessed that they have been stealing the money “spiritually” through a mysterious snake that always sneak into the office to swallow the money from the vault.

“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,'” according to her.

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