Aside N36m ‘swallowed by snake’, JAMB officials in five states can’t account for N83m

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has reportedly discovered a new fraud amounting to N83m in five states.

The states under investigation by the exam body include Kano, Edo, Kogi, Gombe and Plateau.

The development is coming few days after Philomina Chieshe, a JAMB sales clerk in Benue state, said a snake mysteriously swallowed N36m proceeds from the sales of scratch cards.

The board is said to be investigating N31m misappropriated revenue in Edo and N20m in Kano, according to PUNCH.

It is also investigating some officials in Plateau over N15m and Gombe over N10m mismanaged funds.

Kogi state is also said to have been nailed for mismanaging N7m.

Ishaq Oloyode (pictured), registrar of the board, has vowed that the exam body would investigate the allegations and prosecute any of its officials found culpable.

He spoke through Fabian Benjamin, JAMB spokesman.

“We will monitor with careful scrutiny how workers handled public funds. We are trying to block all leakages and loopholes,” Benjamin told PUNCH.

Labaran Tanko, a JAMB official in Nasarawa, is said to be undergoing investigation over a suspected fraud involving N26 million.

Tanko had reportedly said the N26m, which was the worth of unsold unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) scratch cards, got burnt in his car during an accident he was involved in while on his way to remit the cards at the JAMB office in Abuja.