Cleaner Rewarded With Peanuts

Cleaner who found a missing $12,000 at MMIA gets N7,200 salary increase…. That is the news.

This is Josephine Ugwu , the cleaner who works for Patovilki Cleaning Service. The company has the contract by FAAN to keep Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos clean.

This woman has Ordinary National Diploma from Our Savior Institute of Science, Agriculture and Technology, Enugu. Without a job, she is working with this cleaning company earning less than the supposed minimum wage of N18,000 a month. She was earning N7800 when she found a missing USD12,000 at the  Airport. This was on January 23  this year, as she worked, she found the  bag containing large sums of money in different currencies. hear her:

That particular day, I was doing morning shift. As I was cleaning, I saw the bag on the floor where passengers were waiting. Because some passen­gers were still there, I thought that it belonged to one of them. So, I left it there.
Around 7:20pm when I closed and was about to leave, I saw the bag again still in the same position. I then told the passengers there to take note of the bag so they will not forget. The passengers said it didn’t belong to them. So, I had to take the bag to the security point.

“If I had an intention to steal, I would have taken that bag be­cause I knew it contained money. But I could not do it. That is why I took it to the security point at the airport. After they scanned the bag, the security men then opened it and counted the mon­ey. The money was in different currencies. They said it was a total of N12 million.
After sometime, the owner of the bag came to the post to ask for the bag. The security men in­terrogated him to make sure that he was the owner and when they were satisfied, they gave him the bag. He counted the money again and said it was complete. Then they told him that I was the person who picked the bag. They even told him that he was lucky that I was the one that saw the bag; that if it were some other people, they would not have returned it. The man thanked me and left,” she said.

She returned the money and the man who came back and was given his money intact could not give her a little from it to show his gratitude. What kind of man was that?
 Even her colleagues who heard the news were angry with her for returning the money and not getting a thank you reward. Some even said that she threw away God’s blessing.

The woman may not be rich but she values her reputation and that of her company. According to her, there are things money cannot buy:

I have no regret because it is not the first time I would return people’s money. I returned such bags two times in December last year. I was not tempted because they were not mine. The devil will always tempt someone to do what is bad. But I believe in God and what he is capable of doing. So, I trust in him. In fact people have been telling me that by find­ing the money God had already blessed me but that I did not appreciate what God did for me. If I had taken that money I could have damaged the name of my company, and my family name. It is also about the family I came from. I was taught not to take what does not belong to me.

Her company to show appreciation in March increased her salary to N15,000. They just added N7,200 to what she was earning. What a shame. The Company may be paid N20,000 or more by FAAN per each of those cleaners but the Company will not pay them well but use them as slaves.
Even with the increase the money is still not up to the minimum wage. How can she cope? What does she spend on transportation, food, health, accommodation etc.
This woman has OND and yet cannot find a job that pays above the minimum wage. What kind of a Country is this?
Well thank GOD the wind of CHANGE is here. I pray the lot of people like Josephine will change for the better.