Mr Emmanuel Obodoezie, a tricycle operator at Ariaria International Market in Aba, Abia State, on Wednesday, returned ₦2.04 million to a trader who mistakenly left the money in his tricycle after alighting.
Obodoezie was celebrated by Ariaria traders for remaining upright in the face of Nigeria’s economic hardships.
The tricycle operator noted that he picked a woman along Powerline Road and she alighted somewhere around Free Zone area where fish is sold.
Obodoezie said that he told the woman that her fare was N300 but the woman gave him only N250 and he collected it from her without complaining while she left.
He said that he did not look at the back of his Keke after the woman alighted and went away and so did not know that the woman left her bag in his tricycle.
“Because of the bad roads, my machine was bending to one side and to another side until the bag at the back of my machine fell of.
“Then people who saw it fall began to call me to wait that my bag in my machine had fallen off.
“I stopped and thought it must be the the bag of the woman who I dropped off some minutes ago,” he said.
He said that before I stopped, the person who picked it opened it and seeing it was money, wanted to take some from it but I refused to allow him and others to take the money.
He said that he told one of them to hold the money while he would go and bring the owner.
“I went in search of her and God being so kind, she was already coming to search for the tricycle operator who conveyed her and her goods to the market.
“‘When I found her, I went to show her where I kept the money for her to take it,” he said.
The owner of the money, Mrs Chika Aloysius-Iwu told NAN that she was to go to the bank with the N2.04 million in her bag.
“After alighting, I forgot that money on top of the seat of his machine and left.
“When I got to my stall, I remembered that I had forgotten money in that tricycle.
“I knew the face of the man but did not know where he stays so I went in search of him along the road where he stopped for me,” Aloysius-Iwu said.
She said that she eventually saw him, waved him down, he stopped and asked if she was the person he dropped off some minutes ago and she said yes.
“He then said that he had been searching for me and then took me to the man he handed the money over to incase someone in the market begins to search for her money that they should give it to her.
“I don’t know what to say to this good man. I only pray that God will bless him and his generations and show them mercy always,” she said.
The Chairman, Ariaria T-Line, Mr Emmanuel Njoku alias Ose, whose line the woman’s stall is situated said he was surprised to know that such a person exits in Nigeria at this time.
He said that for such a man to do a good deed like that meant that he fears God and deserves to be blessed.
Njoku urged government and well-meaning Nigerians to encourage such good behaviours by recognising the man and rewarding him.
