N36m ‘mystery snake’ saga: More shocking revelations as JAMB official blames Boko Haram for missing N.6m

It was revelations galore at the just concluded sitting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) administrative panel on financial management as officials sought to defend their handling of public funds.
Nine officials  of the board, including one from Benue where a ‘mystery snake’  allegedly  swallowed N36million cash, were probed  and subsequently  indicted by the administrative panel.
Another JAMB official in Yobe State told the panel that  he could not lay his hands on tellers, receipts and invoices of over N600, 000 put in his care following  an attack by the terror sect, Boko Haram.
Yet another official from the Kogi office of JAMB said he gave  out  the N7million in his care as loans to his colleagues who were in need of money to settle personal problems.
He confessed  that he was also a beneficiary of the ‘loans.’
But the panel was not amused by the defence put on by the officials.
All nine were indicted for stealing JAMB funds. The panel thus recommended that they be sacked and the recommendation was forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Education which oversees JAMB.
The stolen fund was part of the payment made by candidates for  registration of scratch cards.
Some of the indicted officials are JAMB state coordinators.
Sources said that, “The nine officials would have been sacked outright but for civil service rules that stipulate that such matters should go through due process.
”All of them are under interdiction. They have appeared before a disciplinary committee. A report has been written to the higher authority. If that report is approved, they will be dismissed and handed to the security agencies.
“EFCC will prosecute them. They have even appeared before the EFCC before. In the course of their investigation they have files with the EFCC which  arrested and investigated them.”
Chief spokesman for JAMB, Dr.Fabian Benjamin, confirmed the development.
He said: “All the necessary disciplinary procedures have been concluded and the report has been  forwarded to higher authorities for further action.
“Very soon, we will get a report from there.”
Apart from Benue, Kogi and Yobe state offices of JAMB, other offices probed by the administrative panel were Edo where N31m was allegedly mismanaged, Nasarawa (N26m),Kano (20m), Plateau (N15m), Ondo (N1.34m), and Gombe  (N10m).
The Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, announced last December that the board remitted N7.8 billion to Federal Government coffers from 2016 University and Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), an improvement on the paltry N3million per annum that it used to remit in previous years.
-The Nation