So good as they say, honesty is the best policy, wen Umar Yusuf did what a few in his position would have done. He found a customer’s dollar bills running into over 100,000 and returned it intact.
For this, the reception manager has been honoured by the government of Jigawa State at the grand finale of its 23rd anniversary celebration in Dutse. Yusuf has been the toast of his Jigawa Hotels employer and lovers of honesty.
He lives in a country ranked the 144th most corrupt. Nigeria, where Umar Yusuf, a reception manager at Jigawa Hotels, proudly identifies as his country, shares this dubious status with failed states, such as Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia.
Nigeria only managed to defeat countries, such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Yemen of the 177 countries surveyed.
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The rating, which has not significantly improved despite the anti-corruption efforts of the government, remains a sore point for Africa’s most populous country.
But Yusuf, who saw and returned a customer’s missing N17 million, has shown that despite the grim corruption index of his country, there is hope that someday Nigeria with his likes can share the same space with Denmark and New Zealand seen as nearly squeaky-clean by graft watchdog Transparency International in the global survey on corruption. The annual list is the most widely used indicator of sleaze in political parties, police, justice systems and civil services.
June 27 started like every other day for Yusuf. He resumed at his work place which is Jigawa State’s best hotel. The hotel boasts of a garden, not far removed from its restaurant. At some point that day, he was around the garden and saw two men sitting and chatting about God-knows-what. Some minutes later the men left the hotel.
One of them was a guest, who had just checked out. Not long after, he discovered an Ipad bag where the men were. He reached for it and behold there was over 100,000 dollar bills in the inner compartment of the Ipad bag. The owner checked into the hotel on June 24 and stayed for three days. It was on the third day after checking out that he forgot it at the garden side.
For someone whose salary and other emoluments are nothing close to the money he just found, chances are that he would see it as manna from heaven or answered prayer. But not Yusuf, who was born July 15, 1976.
“It never occurred to me to take the money for myself,” he told The Nation on phone from his Dutse base yesterday.
But why didn’t it occur to him to steal the money?
“My conscience‘ll not allow me to rest. Here we have a forgotten item store. What occurred to me was to just inform the management and that was what I did. Somebody did the calculation and said it was N17m based on the exchange rate at that time,” he said.
Some days later, the contact person who booked the hotel room for the customer called to ask if the cash was recovered.
Yusuf said: “He was not even sure where he forgot it. But immediately he asked if I saw it, I just told him the money was with me. He came for it. I asked him to count it and confirm that it was complete but he said there was no need and left. In the first week of July, I got a letter of appreciation for returning the money.”
He was not the first member of staff who discovered items forgotten by guests. But that was the first time that huge amount of money was discovered and returned in tact. No wonder, the management of the hotel, better known as Three Star, has treated him like the Golden Boy.
“The management gave me an award for the act,” he said.
Determined to further sell him as a symbol of honesty, it also recommended him to the owner of the hotel, the Jigawa State government, to be honoured.
So, on Wednesday, an elated Governor Sule Lamido, as part of activities marking the state’s 23rd anniversary, presented him with a plaque and a certificate. There was no cash reward, Yusuf told this reporter.
Lamido was proud of him and he did not hide his feelings.
This newspaper’s facebook page yesterday published Yusuf’s picture where Lamido was presenting the plaque and certificate to him. It became an instant topic for discussion among Nigerians. The picture was re-shared 248 times; it was seen by 155,520 people; and it generated 444 comments. The comments were diverse. Some praised him; others mocked him.
The views of Ugboga Olatunji tally with Datonye’s. “There are still men of honour and integrity in this country. Don’t look at it and say in your heart, why don’t I collect this money? May God give you more than this in your pocket. It is well.”
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