A member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Akwa Ibom State has proven that a good name is better than riches and has shown that there are still many Nigerians with integrity and good character despite the challenging times.
Ojeleye Timilehin Joseph, a batch ‘C’ stream 2 corps member from Oyo State serving in Akwa Ibom State where he was posted to Fortune Polytechnic in Uyo, the state capital, found a misplaced purse containing “some cash, three cash cards popularly known as Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) cards, driver’s licence and voter’s card,” and promptly took steps to locate its owner without looking back.
According to Eno Ekong, a retired officer of the NYSC, Ojeleye, who picked up the misplaced purse searched for her on social media platforms but he did not get any favourable response after he called the phone number shown on the social media pages.
Checks showed that he did not stop there, he contacted a friend of the owner of the purse after two of them had recently appeared on a post online and got the lady’s correct phone number.
“To cut a long story short, the corps member returned the purse to me with everything intact,” Ekong said, adding that she was delighted to have had her purse with all the documents back.
”You can imagine how glad I am for such kindness, honesty and integrity on the part of the corps member, adding, there are still good, selfless young people out there in the country,” she added.
In an interview, Ojeyele, who studied Applied Physics at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State said he needed to be a good ambassador of the NYSC and the country, adding that though he lacked money on that day when he found the purse, he was particular about his integrity and name.
“I believe if the money was meant for me, there would not be any means of identifying the owner of the purse for me to reach out to the owner. I have to be a good ambassador of the NYSC and the country at large.
“That very day I picked the purse I was in need of money, but I believed God was going to use another way to provide for my upkeep, since the money was not mine in the first place,” he said.
He advised the youth not to be selfish and greedy and not to feel “comfortable at the expense of others.”
