A
snake allegedly swallowed money in a government office in Nigeria.
To
further demonstrate how rooted corruption has become in Nigeria, another story
trended recently. A public official was asked to account for a missing money in
her custody. She replied that she couldn’t find the money because a snake had
swallowed it. She looked everybody in the eyes and said a mysterious snake
swallowed a sum of ₦36m. In words – thirty-six million naira. How brave!
It
happened at the national headquarters of the examination body, Joint Admissions
and Matriculation Board (JAMB). They noticed some money was missing and they
tried to make an inquiry into what happened. Then this woman came up with this.
If you think this is some fiction or fairy tale, a video link has been attached
towards the end of this article.
This
has got 200 million Nigerians talking. Social media has exploded. Everywhere
you go, Nigerians are talking about this incident. Meanwhile I discovered that
many people talking about it don’t have the full details of what happened. Once
again, there’s a video at the end but before then, let me point out 4 things
that the people talking about this might not have realized.
1. The ₦36m was only in Benue State
Most
people commenting on this think the ₦36m is missing from JAMB
headquarters or from JAMB as a whole. No.
JAMB
has an office in every state of the federation and this ₦36m was
the money missing only in the Benue State office. Monies were missing from
other states too and this panel was looking at the states one after the other.
This woman was the official representing Benue State and she just happened to
trend because of her comical story of a snake swallowing money. So in essence,
till we have what got missing in the other states, we can’t quantify the extent
of corruption that has transpired in this government agency.
It’s
also important to note that ₦36m wasn’t the total
money embezzled in Benue State alone. For online registration for the exams,
candidates purchase scratch cards. This woman is the one that collects the
proceeds from the sales of the scratch cards. She is meant to deposit it at the
bank at the end of every business day. So the money missing is for scratch
cards only. Who knows how much is missing for other things?
2. The snake
didn’t swallow the money all at once
Most
people commenting on this think the ₦36m was together in one
sum when the snake swallowed it. From the video below, this is not the case.
According
to her, she went to deposit the money at the bank everyday. However whenever
she got to the bank, she would discover that what she had in her hands was far
less than what she had made for the day. She was always confused. This happened
over a long period of time. By the time the calculation was done, the total
deifict over the period of time amounted to ₦36m. So according to her,
the snake swallowed it piecemeal on a daily basis. You know you can’t finish
the meat of a whole elephant in a day but if we sum up all the meat you have
eaten your whole life, there’s a chance you might have eaten meat the size of
an elephant. Now you get the gist.
3. She claimed
to have received the revelation during prayer and witch confession
Many
people think she just made this up. No, she didn’t. This was revealed to her in
a church.
When
she took stock and noticed the enormity of the problem that had persisted in
her life, she decided to seek spiritual help. All the way from Benue State, she
travelled to Jos to meet a powerful man of God. She travelled in the company of
her househelp whom she had been suspecting. While in the church, prayers began
and the power of God manifested in a mighty way. The power of God then revealed
that her househelp was a witch. Sounds familiar? Remember I once wrote about
how to identify witches. Click here to read the article.
Then
the power of God pushed the young lady to confess her evil deeds. That was when
she said she (the househelp) was the one sending a spiritual snake to sneak
into madam’s drawer in the office and steal the money piecemeal. Madam still
don’t know the destination the snake was taking the money to but she was
convinced this is the source of her problem. It was a spiritual problem. She
returned with this assurance to face the JAMB panel of inquiry.
4. There’s
nothing special in what she said
It’s
a surprise that nobody bought her story. I’m happy that people didn’t buy the
nonsense but I’m surprised. Why didn’t Nigerians buy her story?
There’s
the joke that’s circulating. It says something like people who believe that a
snake talked in the garden of Eden should’ve believed that a snake swallowed
money in Nigeria.
I’m
of the opinion that people are doubting her perhaps because her story wasn’t
written in an ancient book like the Bible or the Quran. Otherwise people could’ve
believed her. The same way people wouldn’t have believed today if they were
told that a snake had a conversation with a woman in a garden. Another angle is
people are doubting her because she’s not a big pastor. After all, our big
pastors have said more unbelievable things and people didn’t doubt them. How
many people doubted Pastor Adeboye when he said he drove over 200 km on an
empty fuel tank?
All
of this is by the way. This is who we are as a people. We are people who have
strong spiritual beliefs. In Nigeria, we believe that someone can steal your
genitals just by talking to you or touching you on the street. A video once
circulated about how an evil woman consistently swallowed a bride’s pregnancy
for 5 years just because she (the evil woman) got to touch the bride’s tummy on
the wedding day. Maybe the househelp has done the same thing to her madam? We
believe that if you don’t pay tithes, a devourer can enter your business and
magically deplete your bank account. Maybe this woman’s snake is her own
devourer. Who knows?
We believe money rituals are effective. There are many ways they purportedly work. One way is by spirits
invisibly stealing money from other people and bringing them to you. Maybe this
woman is a victim of the money rituals of someone else somewhere far away. The
spiritual snake could’ve been stealing the money from her drawer and depositing
it in someone else’s wardrobe hundreds of kilometres away. My people believe
that if a market woman receives money from a money ritualist and she mixes the
money with the rest of her money, all her money will disappear from her purse
and appear in the ritualist’s house. Why are the same people who hold these
beliefs doubting this JAMB woman?
Most
Nigerians believe that witches can confess and their confessions are true. Why
aren’t they believing the confession of this househelp here? In many
pentecostal churches, people (mostly women) confess their evil spiritual deeds.
There’s a popular video of a young woman in TB Joshua’s church confessing that
she’s the spirit of illuminati and that she killed Michael Jackson and Dagrin.
Why is the case of the househelp of this JAMB woman different? Don’t we believe
that fervent prayers of a genuine man of God can make witches confess?
Anyway,
I don’t believe all of her story. I think she should be prosecuted according to
the law. However I can’t but say this is the result of the beliefs that are
prevalent in this society and it’s not a surprise that our nonsensical
spiritual beliefs have found their way into public service and government
circles.
Below
is the video of the woman’s testimony at the panel.
Peter
is a Nigerian, doctor, freethinker, and social activist. He's a strong believer
in the power of reasoning and critical thinking and touts mental liberation via
reasoning and critical thinking as the only way to improve the country and
humanity as a whole.
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