JAMB Official Blames Boko Haram For Missing Funds

Ishaq Oloyede, registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board

The Yobe State Coordinator of the Joint Admission Matriculation Board, Sanusi Atose, has blamed his inability to account for N613, 000 belonging to the board on the activities of Boko Haram insurgents in the state.

Atose made the submission when he appeared before an administrative panel in Abuja, led by the JAMB registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, when he was ordered to explain the disappearance of the cash received from the sale of scratch cards.

Premium Times reports the official told the panel that tellers, receipts and invoices were destroyed in a Boko Haram attack, which he said left him with no documentation for the transaction.

His submission was however dismissed by the JAMB boss and ordered him to refund the whole amount within a week.

“Kindly go and pay government money within one week, else you will be in trouble,” the registrar told Mr. Atose.

Also in his account before the panel, Daniel Agbor, the Kogi State coordinator of JAMB, said the N7 million missing from his office was spent on assisting other workers in his office, who he said were ravaged by poverty.

“The state of the state offices is such that we are in poverty and money is there with us,” Mr. Agbor told the panel.

“You need the grace of God in the state offices not to steal money because money is tempting. We borrowed the money and I am not the only one, I will provide the list of everyone involved in the fraud.”

“To err is human, to forgive is divine, please don’t take me to the police, please be lenient with me, sir,” he pleaded.

“If you hear that I have given up in the police cell, will you say I am sorry? I just gave birth to my first issue. Most of us are on loan, my salary is N175, 000, but when they deduct my loans, my salary remains N90,000, which is not enough for me so I borrowed from the government purse.”

Mr. Agbor further claimed he paid N265,000 into an account allegedly on the instruction of the former registrar of the board.

“I was informed of missing scratch cards, but security personnel, the police and civil defence, invaded the office, retrieved the cards and they paid some money back. I informed the former registrar and he directed me to send the money to an account, which I did. I later learnt the money was transferred to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence. So that one was not calculated at all,” he said.

His defence was however not acceptable to the panel.

“I will give you one week from today as we speak,” Mr. Oloyede told the coordinator. “I want to see you pay everything in your custody, else I will hand you over to the police.

“Deduct the N265, 000 from the N7 million, then give us the account in which the former registrar gave you to send the money to.”

Recall also that a JAMB official at its Makurdi, Benue State office, Philomena Chieshe, claimed a mysterious snake swallowed N36 million government cash in her custody.