Man Returns “Free Money” to Government—Foolishness or What? -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

We live is an age where government money is considered free money that should be treated like manna from heaven which should be spent or used without accountability. But is there anything like free money? Is anything free on earth? The air we breathe? We are in the raining season, what about the rain that is consistently sent down for our benefit; on our farms, on our plantations, and to benefit our livestock? These are considered free gifts of nature. But are they free in the real sense? They are heavenly gifts; or if you like, divine gifts for which we are ever thankful. However, one must pay for them through worshipping the Lord—the Creator. We shall be asked about them. If so, how free are the free gifts of nature?

Getting into government in Nigeria is like colliding with a windfall and falling into wealth. One is, in a nutshell, home and dry—being in government. I am not, by this, referring to civil servants. The economic system in Nigeria, as it is, is designed to make the civil servants wretched for the whole of their lives except the few ones who are privileged or got the “opportunity” to steal. By getting into government, I mean being co-opted into the class of those who sit majestically on the national cake which they do not know how to bake nor understand how it is being baked. This is the reason why people delight and celebrate beyond reasonability when they win election or are appointed as ministers or commissioners, or as beneficiaries of other juicy appointments. Understandably, it is their turn to chop, to help themselves, and to make it in life.

Nevertheless, in the midst of this material decadence to which many Nigerians are entangled, we still have some unique people whose sense of probity is not damaged nor tainted. A man in Kano State was said to have returned what many considered “free money” to government because he thinks, and so rightly, that the money does not belong to him nor to his family. He is Yusuf Sulaiman Sumaila. This young man lost his father in October last year. Since then, the state government continued to pay the deceased salary until last month (August). Yusuf, not convinced that the money was lawful, reportedly requested for stoppage of the payment.

Yusuf was not done, he requested to return the backlog of salaries paid to his late father’s account to the government coffer.

How much is the money? It is roughly a ten month salary and a peanut. This is why civil servants deserve our pity since government cannot pity them. But do you pity people when you also deserve pity yourself? This is the dilemma. This explains why some civil servants are nauseatingly corrupt. Their absurd take-home pay is a strong incentive to corruption and it strongly motivates one to be corrupt except for God’s help. The deceased salary for ten months is N328, 115.75. If your calculator works accurately like mine, it means the deceased earned an amount less than N33, 000 monthly. To buy sugar or to buy a bag of sachet water? This cannot feed the deceased not to talk of his household—wives and children and relatives.

To Yusuf, many will say he is a fool for returning that money. If he had sought peoples’ advice, he would have been severally counselled as follows: “Don’t fool yourself.” “No be government money!?” “You asked them to continue the payment?” “Please help yourself Jare or you be mumu?” “Hope there is no curse on you, you want to return money to government account?” “So government no dey pay you, na you bin dey pay government ba, you dey craze?” “This one na God blessing, na sin to reject God’s blessing.” That is Nigeria for you.

But Yusuf has only proved the Prophet right. The Prophet, (SAW) in a long hadith said: “A group from my Ummah (my people) will continue to uphold the truth and be victorious, regardless of those who let them down (did not support them), until the command of Allah, Exalted and Glorified, comes.” This is exactly what Yusuf did. He upholds the truth when truth has become an abandoned orphan because dishonesty is treasured—highly treasured. Yusuf’s action is silly to many Nigerians but his action is commendable to many right thinking people who still have some scintilla of godliness in their heart.

Mind you, as worst as many think Nigerians are when it comes to expending government money recklessly, we still have many of Yusufs. The money he paid back to the government treasury isn’t a great money. We have seen and heard about people who returned millions of naira to their rightful owners. About two months ago, one Aishatu, a Nigerian pilgrim from Zamfara State, reportedly returned $80, 000 she found to the owner in Saudi Arabia.

Then, that was about N56, 000, 000. This is a huge and life changing sum of money. Why Yusuf deserves a special commendation despite the fact that the money he returned to the government coffer is just few thousands is the circumstance and the philosophy behind his action. Many Nigerians, even the ‘honest’ among us, who will ordinarily return a private lost-and-found-money to its owner, will not do so if it were government money. Yusuf and his ilk must be commended by that rare honesty.

The Kano State Governor did well by personally inviting Yusuf to his office to thank him. He commended Yusuf for his remarkable gesture and urged other young people to emulate him and uphold the value of honesty. That said, our governors have a great role to play to alleviate poverty in their states. Joining the civil service, especially at the state level, is like ignorantly signing a lifetime agreement with poverty. Many aspire to join the civil service—and many ultimately joined it—thinking it is an escape route from poverty.

Alas, they later realized that it is a short cut to poverty. The ridiculous N30, 000 minimum wage is paid to some civil servants only in their wildest dream. With this ongoing hardship bonanza, how, in the imagination of these Nigerian rulers, would minimum wage feed a mouth? And we are talking of a household. When exactly is this hardship bonanza going to stop?

Lest I digress, Yusuf is my focus. A young man returned government money which he would have silently devoured if had chosen to, but our old men (some in their seventies) in their heavily starched political babban riga are busy devouring the national cake in the public shamelessly.

This is irony of reality which is itself ironical. May God uplift Yusuf to a greater height and reward him nicely for his honesty; and many like him. Perhaps he learnt that honesty from his late father. At any rate, may God have mercy on his late father and take care of those he left behind.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com