Senator Sani offers board snake charmers to catch N36m thief

Kaduna lawmaker, Shehu Sani, was an unexpected visitor at the headquarters of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Tuesday, February 13, 2018, when he visited the agency with anti-snake venom and snake charmers to catch the snake that was allegedly responsible for stealing N36 million.

This was in reaction to a JAMB official who had sensationally claimed that the sum of N36 million missing from the board's office vault in Benue State, was "spiritually" stolen by a mysterious snake.

According to the lawmaker representing Kaduna Central senatorial district, he was concerned by the alleged theft and presented JAMB Registrar, ProfessorIshaq Oloyede, with anti-snake venom and two snake charmers to unravel the mystery.

He said, "The reason for my presence here is in response to the story that a snake swallowed about N36 million. It is my concern that such a huge amount of money is reported to have been swallowed by a snake.

"I believe the contribution I can make is to bring snake charmers from my constituency to the JAMB office to help them fish out the snake or weed out snakes from their premises.

"If a snake can actually swallow N36 million one day we may wake up in this country to see that a snake has swallowed our foreign reserve or it has swallowed money that was gathered in the TSA."

The senator also praised Professor Oloyede for the job he has been doing since he took over the agency.

He said, "We are very proud of him. We believe he is someone who should continue to man this agency and he is acting in the right direction.

"It is good for Nigerians to know this is what has been happening before he came into office. I believe the best thing we can do is to continue to support him.

"People should understand the story which is very clear and if that is the case, if people, civil servants could have used the opportunity to have been in office to enrich themselves using snake stories.

"It is high time for all Nigerians to know that there may be even dirty things happening in other places but this place has exposed it for us to see the truth and I'm very much happy about that.

"We will continue to support him. And as far as we are concerned the story that public funds could be taken away by some people in the name of snake, it is virtually unacceptable."

Professor Oloyede took the lawmaker's act in good humour and insisted on taking photographs with the unexpected gift of cartons of snake repellent and chemicals.

According to Premium Times, one of the snake charmers, Tasiu Abdulrasheed, said he has never encountered a money-swallowing snake in his 20 years as a professional snake charmer.

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How snake 'stole' N36 million from JAMB vault

When a team of auditors tried to audit the accounts of JAMB's Benue branch, a sales clerk, Philomina Chieshe,could not account for N36 million she had made for the agency from the sale of scratch cards.

When she was probed, Chiesheconfessed that it was her housemaid that colluded with another JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to "spiritually" steal the money from the vault in the accounts office with the help of a snake.

She 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."

JAMB spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, has revealed that Chieshe has undergone the board's disciplinary process and will be handed over to the appropriate security agency in due time for the recovery of the missing money.