The management of JAMB has declared the suspension of Philomina Cheishe and all other staff involved in the "mystery snake" case which led to the missing N36m from the JAMB office at Markurdi, Benue State.

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, had last year, said JAMB for the first time remitted N5billion to the government’s coffers with a promise to pay the balance of N3bn, compared to maximum N3million remitted yearly in the last 40 years. In this regard, Adeosun thought it necessary to probe all previous heads of the agencies corncerned. 

Meanwhile, A team of auditors was said to have been dispatched to different state offices of JAMB to take inventory of sold and unsold scratch cards and recover the generated money. Getting to the JAMB office at Markurdi, Benue State, was Philomina Chieshe, a sales clerk, the woman reportedly told the team that she could not account for N36m made in the previous years before the abolition of scratch cards. 

However, in the course of interrogation, Chieshe reportedly changed the narrative, saying that it was her housemaid who connived with another woman, Joan Asen, to “spiritually steal the money” from the vault in the accounts office. According to her “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.” 

The JAMB Head of Information, Fabian Benjamin, revealed that the board was taking Philomina Chieshe, through other disciplinary measures while security agencies were investigating the matter.