The proverbial excuse of the lazy American student is ‘‘the dog ate my homework.’’ We now have an analogous fable of the corrupt Nigerian official: ‘’the snake ate my loot.’’
Philomena Chieshe, a female cashier at the Makurdi office of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, told auditors who asked her to account for the 36 million naira she had collected from sales of scratch cards a self-exculpatory cock and bull story that harks back to Eve scapegoating the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Mrs. Chieshe told her interrogators that some phantom python consumed the money.
The Nigerian daughter of Eve improved on her great grandmother’s blame-game. Eve blamed the serpent for deceiving her into eating the forbidden fruit. Philomena blamed the serpent for eating the forbidden fruit.
Eve confessed that she reached for the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, plucked it, ate it and passed it on. But Philomena would not enter the mitigating plea that the devil beguiled her. She declares her absolute innocence. She was never tempted to touch the cash. She did not have an appetite for the money. A malicious mystery snake ‘’ate’’ it… to incriminate her!
The Unique Nigerian Legend of A Money-Eating Snake By Emmanuel Ugwu
