A 33-year-old mini-bus driver, Mr Bisi Oladimeji, on Saturday returned N49,000 cash and a cheque for N380,000 to the owner in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.
The owner, Mrs Olubunmi Adeleke, a teacher at Our Lady and St. Francis College, Osogbo, forgot a purse containing the items in the bus she boarded from Fakunle area of Osogbo to Aregbe.
The owner of the cheque lives at Agunbelewo area of Osogbo while the cheque was written in her favour from her co-operative society.
Adeleke said: “I was really devastated when I realised that I have misplaced the purse. I got the N380,000 cheque from my cooperative for a private project. I was about to give up all hope when the bus driver traced me and returned all my money and personal effects intact,” she said.
Oladimeji said although he was in need of money, “I couldn’t have taken what is not mine.”
The driver, who lives in Ikirun but operates in Osogbo with a bus registered, XA 76 RGB, said he became a driver when he could not get a white-collar job.
“I have a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Accountancy from the Federal Polytechnic, Offa.
“The bus is not my own; I am just a hired driver; I do it to keep soul and body together,” Oladimeji said.
He said he sat for the recent Osun Civil Service Commission recruitment examination and scored 199, adding, “although I don’t know whether I would be employed, but I know that only God can bless me.
“When I saw the purse in my bus, I checked inside and found the identity card showing where the passenger works,” he said.
On how he located the owner, Oladimeji said he traced the school in Isale Aro area of Osogbo, from where I was directed to Mrs Adeleke’s house.
