With stories of cybercrime, 419, kidnapping and banditry flying around, it certainly would not be out of place to celebrate William Okogbue, who recently found and returned a whopping $10,000 at his duty post.
Okogbue, a security operative with Ecobank, Sheraton Junction, Abuja branch had resumed work like every other day, hoping to keep an eagle eye on activities in and around the premises as usual. But this was going to be an unusual day for the 45-year-old father of three.
As the morning of that beautiful Thursday gradually crept into noon, a customer walked in, and after making his transaction, left a bag containing life-changing amount of $10,000, approximately three million, six hundred thousand naira in the banking hall and walked away.
Speaking with Journalists at an integrity ceremony organised in his honour by Hogan Guard, the security outfit that he works for, Okogbue said he saw the bag and picked it up, unzipped it and found a whopping 10,000 US dollars in it.
According to him, the first thing he asked himself was, “Could this be a temptation or an answer to prayers?”
“When I picked the money, I went inside the toilet and stood there for almost an hour. I opened it and saw it’s dollars. I looked very well if it was fake dollars and one dubious character just dropped it to avoid arrest by the security agents and behold it’s original US dollars. So I zipped up the bag and went to my Customer Service Manager, who was also so shocked he could only mutter ‘Jesus, Jesus’ repeatedly.
“Much later, the man came back with the expression of great loss in his face. My CSM interrogated him to be sure he was the owner of the money. The money was released to him and that was when the man introduced himself as the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) deputy governor,” he stressed.
Asked why he didn’t just walk away with the money, despite his status as a security guard with loads of responsibilities? Is it a personal principle or something inculcated in him by his employers, Hogan Guard Security?
The Abia State-born security guard said apart from the fact that Hogan Guard gave him training to protect lives and properties, he also came from a home where the virtue of integrity was sacrosanct and well inculcated in him.
“Not that I am rich but I’m not hungry. While growing up, I was taught good morals, which included that it is a taboo to take what does not belongs to you.
“If I had picked that money that day, I would probably be running helter-skelter and I won’t be here receiving this honour. The organisations I am working for, Hogan Guard and Ecobank would have been in a mess. I might also have landed myself in trouble and put my family and community to shame.”
“Some people have been saying all kinds of unprintable things against me on social media. Some said why should I, a security guard, return such amount of money; some even said I have chosen to be a poor man. But I never gave a listening ear to such mischief makers,’ he stated.
Speaking on behalf of the Ecobank branch where Okogbue worked, the acting CSO said Okogbue is now seen as a model in the bank.
He stressed that he is often been referred to when the bank wants to talk about integrity and honesty, saying that it is commendable to see a security guard returning money whereas in some cases bankers themselves have been dubious.
Also speaking at the event, a Chief Security Officer at Access bank Plc, Chuks Maha, blamed immoral behaviour often reported among Nigerian youths, especially outside Nigerian shores, on the lack of integrity among Nigerian leaders.
Maha said integrity is a key word which Nigeria is gradually losing, saying people who strive to bring back the lost culture deserve to be celebrated.
“What we are celebrating here today is not just a guard who found money and returned it… What we are celebrating here today is the future of Nigeria.”
‘If a man who in his entire life has not saved that kind of money did not say God has answered his prayers, but handed the money to the bank authority, it means there is still hope for Nigeria,” Maha submitted.
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