During the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board's 2018 internal audit, ₦36,000,000 in scratch-card sales were found missing at the Makurdi (Benue State) office. Accounts clerk Philomena Chieshe explained the gap by claiming a 'mysterious snake' had entered the office vault overnight and swallowed the cash — invoking spiritual cause in a way familiar in some Nigerian folk discourse. JAMB Registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede suspended Chieshe immediately and confirmed the loss publicly. EFCC and police investigations concluded the funds had been embezzled by Chieshe and an accomplice over months; she was arraigned by the ICPC at the FCT High Court. The 'snake that swallowed ₦36m' became a defining Nigerian satirical shorthand for unaccounted-for public funds.
Benue State context — the Makurdi office that Chieshe staffed was the JAMB scratch-card-issuing centre for candidates from Benue, Nasarawa and parts of Taraba in the 2018 UTME cycle. Benue placed in the upper-middle band of state-by-state UTME outcomes that year on JAMB's published statutory summary; the precise per-state score-distribution table is on file with the Board's Statistics Directorate. The Republic is sourcing the official 2018 Benue UTME breakdown from JAMB and will publish it inline as a verified table once received.