Female Cleaner who returned N12m gets N7,200 pay increase

Josephine Ugwu, the airport cleaner who returned a passenger’s luggage containing local and foreign wads of cash to the tune of N12m has been rewarded with a N7,200 salary increment.

Ugwu, who works for Patovilki Cleaning Services, a concessionaire engaged by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria to keep the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos clean, was on a monthly salary of N7,800 before the incident.

The National Diploma graduate of Our Saviour Institute of Science, Agriculture and Technology, Enugu, now enjoys a N7,200 salary increment, bringing her new salary to just N15,000.

During a visit to the airport, Punch interacted with Ugwu’s colleagues who expressed disappointment that such act of uncommon integrity was not noticed by the government.

They argued that a society that was quick to mete out punishment to offenders should also be quick to reward exemplary behaviour.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of Ugwu’s colleagues lamented that the government did not have a culture of rewarding and encouraging exemplary behaviour.

She said, “Some people have abused her and called her a fool for returning the bag. It now looks as if what she did was wrong. Most people will not be motivated to follow her lead when faced with similar situation. The government should have, at least, sent her a commendation letter for what she did.” 

Another colleague, identified simply as Faith, also expressed disappointment. She said Ugwu had returned passengers’ luggage with money in them for a record third time and all three had gone unnoticed.

She said, “Twice in December 2014, she returned passengers’ luggage with huge sums of money in them. One contained about N600,000 and the other had close to N2m. if it were to be a case of stealing and she was caught, I am sure the government would have been quick to send her to jail.”

Josephine Ugwu has however assured that she had no regrets for the good she did.