A civil servant from Kogi State, Mrs Husseina Mohammed has reportedly returned the sum of N1,780,500 paid in excess of her March salary to the coffers of the state government. She is a level seven accountant attached to the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) in Lokoja.
Her monthly salary is approximately N34,000. However, one morning, while shopping, Husseina’s phone beeped, indicating a text message. Upon opening it, she saw that her salary account credited with N1,787, 550.98k.
The text message stated that it was her salary for the month of March, 2017. Shocked, Husseina told Nigerian Tribune that she read the message over and over again.
On getting home, she narrated her experience to her husband. After a brief interaction, they decided to refund the money, saying that it was the right thing to do.
The decision to refund the money was expected to be a difficult one for the family because of their peculiar situation, but it became the simplest one for them, the couple stated.
Husseina’s husband, an employee of the TSC in Lokoja, was one of those affected by the ongoing screening exercise in the state. He disclosed that for 15 months, he argued that he had not received any salary from government.
Throughout this period the family depended on the salary of the wife that was also not promptly paid for survival. Many believed the money wrongly paid into her account should have been a solution to the problem facing them.
But that was not to be, the money was not allowed to stay beyond 24 hours in the account as it was returned to the coffers of the government.
The Director General of the Bureau of Information and Grassroots Mobilisation, Abdulmalik Abdulkareem, described the action of the civil servants as a rare display of honesty and integrity.
“We are also happy to know that her husband is also like-minded. Despite the fact that her husband is among the civil servants on the uncleared list, he refused to be tempted. We appreciate that and the government is definitely looking into his case,” he added.