Welcome to Nigeria, a land where the most absurd things happen. It is only in Nigeria that a looter of public fund would tell a lie as asinine as that told by Philomena, a sales clerk of JAMB Markudi Office. According to our 'ingenious' sales clerk, a mysterious snake had been sneaking into the office to spirit out moneys made from the sale of JAMB scratch cards, totalling 36 million naira.
Her confession was made only after auditors, who were sent to Markudi office to investigate an allegation of fraud, discovered that the said amount made from the sale of scratch cards could not be accounted for.
This brilliantly dumb lie leaves me to wonder if Nigerians would have ever heard about this wonder snake had there been no investigation. Can madam Philomena honestly say that she had no idea that moneys under her care were going missing before the investigation? If not why did she wait for an investigation before she ratted out the snake culprit?
The above incredulous lie is why I hope for a worldwide, or at least a nationwide, adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. You see, with blockchain being an open source ledger, no snake can spirit away public funds as the money can be traced. No money-swallowing snake can operate without being traced to where it vomits its swallow.
On a saddening note however governments around the world, including Nigeria, are actively discouraging the adoption of cryptocurrency. One of their major anti-crypto argument is that government is unable to regulate it like fiat currency. Nevertheless, should a government for the people continue with a system that permits mysterious frauds just so they can hold on to regulatory power, or switch to a system that demystifies the mysterious? To be, or not to be, that is the question.
