Of cashivores and JAMB’s stolen funds

If I ever told you I have never stolen please forgive me, I lied. Thanks to the unrelenting atori or whips of late Pa MB Asaju and the unforgiving slaps of Mama Titilayo, I am cured. At the age of six or seven, I had a bosom buddy with an adventurous albeit mischievous mind. He knew how stupid I was and very often took advantage of it. From ‘tapping’ other people’s snails and hiding them in broken pots behind our hovel, I graduated into stealing a whole grasscutter from my household.

I was not bold enough to take even a bite; instead I hid it under my mother’s sleeping mat. When Mom returned from the farm and asked what happened, I feigned ignorance. Meal went as planned and my parents thought the meat had been eaten by a stray dog. As Mom had the habit of making her mud bed each night before sleeping on it, my secret was soon discovered. When the household meeting was called, I feared my end had finally come. I blandly told my parents that a mouse had hidden it there! I know you think I made this one up; but I swear by my mother’s grave it is true. I was naive enough to think that our hovel co-tenants, the mice that often chewed on anything they found were little humanoids. It was the last time I remember attempting to steal.

Back then, President Jones was not around to declare that stealing is not corruption and Buhari hadn’t shown up to hide, sorry, fight corruption. There were no children rights’ activists telling parents that they could not give bad six-yearolds a hiding. So from one exorcised house thief to an unabashed one, I absolutely relate with Philomena Chiese who, with a stolid face told investigators how her housegirl diabolically connived with another staff to swallow N36 million JAMB money. However, Ms Chiese lost my sympathy over those of my generation who in high school swindled their illiterate parents of money to buy three books titled Geo, Gra & Phy. Ms Chiese looks at least 30 years older than precocious me, who attributed a missing grasscutter to the house rat.

One other worrying thing is how ultimately convinced she is with her story. This is what makes her a good candidate for Dr AG Ahmed’s psychiatry classes at The Royal here in Ottawa or the congested wards in Aro. Ms Ochiese is a victim as well as a culprit. She is the victim of incomplete spiritual metamorphosis. It is a condition whereby those who have yet to graduate from primitivity are transported into the hocus-pocus brand of Christianity pioneered by Naija’s pastorpreneur Gods of men. If you invite Ms Ochiese’s pastor, s/he would explain this diabolical stealing of fiscal cash in a way and manner that would elicit halleluyah ululations from co-travellers in spiritual brainwashing.

Her flippant confirmation of the metaphysical role of a hapless housemaid, the likely daughter of underprivileged parents is the worst of the tragedy. God only knows what the hapless maid has been subjected to for diabolically swallowing N36 million. Her plight should concern us because it is apparent that her image and character has been eternally assassinated as she is forced into a confession of a crime for which she is absolutely not guilty. This role carved for her by her accident of birth is likely to blemish her for life, erode her self-confidence and destroy her potentials to be anything in life. Except Ochiese is sent to jail for her crime with a dose of psychiatric care, none of her kids is likely to end up as a housemaid. We have a duty to advocate for this housemaid and others forced to eke out a living amidst the struggle with the transition from primitivism into pseudo-modernity.

Worse is the story that Ms Ochiese is not the only psychotic with kleptomania working for JAMB in Buhariland. Priscilla Ogunshola, Edo coordinator could not account for N31 million. Yakubu Aliu, JAMB coordinator in Kano has lost N20 million. Zakada Yakubu in Plateau lost N15 million while Sanusi Atose of Yobe State blames Boko Haram for the missing N613,000. In Kogi, Daniel Agbor could not account for N7 million.

Labaran Tanko, Nasarawa State coordinator, claimed to have lost N23 million in a car fire. His ancestors were able to sell the burnt cards to ghost applicants. Murtala Abdul of Gombe claimed unknown officials forged his signature to steal N10 million. In Ondo State, Olaolu Adeniyi claimed N1.34 million disappeared while his accountant was on dialysis - very likely that the cash transformed into dialyzed blood.

It would appear that those in whose custody these monies were kept helped themselves to it. Heists like this are hardly carried out by lone wolves. There are co-conspirators and auditors who probably looked through these accounts and passed them. If they did, they’ll benefit from refresher courses in maximumsecurity prisons.

It’s a shame that a country that invests next to zero in the education of its children finds it right to rake in billions from selling scratch cards to them. The idea of JAMB as a moneymaking venture is absolutely repugnant to natural justice. The right to apply to higher institutions ought to be free. Nobody should be selling JAMB forms or scratch cards. It should be, as it is in every civilised country one of the responsibilities a nation owes its glorious tomorrow. Nobody charges fees for processing university applications in London where Buhari sent his children for studies. It is not done Canada, America and the UK, it’s a sleazemaking business in Naija!