FACE OF INTEGRITY

If your monthly salary was $40 and you picked up $65,000, what would you do? I guess this doesn’t sound like a riddle; in fact, I once heard a man said that if he saw $20,000 he would pick it up because it’s a fortune from God. Josephine Ugwu, a cleaner at the Murtala Muhammad Interna­tional Airport, Lagos,Nigeria on January 23 showed rare integrity when she handed a bag stocked with $65,000 to the security operatives at the airport. Quite a number of persons lambasted her by the time the news filtered through the airport.

Josephine’s action was indeed unbelievable to many because typically one would have expected her to use her discovery as a rescue from a miserable $40 job. Besides, her cleaning job is an enervating one because she works 12 hours for her employer, Patovilki, a cleaning agen­cy contracted to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).I was particularly shocked because the environment where she’s domiciled is one filled with charlatans and opportunistic elements. However, she placed a 110% on her integrity by drawing wisdom from Proverbs 22:1.

People are corrupt not primarily because they are poor, but because they have failed to fully recognize the value of keeping a good name. Liu Han, a Chinese billionaire, executed for corruption wasn’t poor, so corruption isn’t something peculiar among the poor. Everyday our integrity faces different tests. We must learn to place our integrity above material things. However, don’t harbor fear that if you completely abstain from corrupt practices you can’t be rich. God is the custodian of wealth (Haggai 2:8) so dispel every fear of being plunged into poverty if decide to stay clean. It’s time people stopped being crafty and live a clean life. In the last two years I’ve seen crafty means adopted by several persons all because they desire wealth. Be wary of channels that throw quick-rich opportunities at you because the stench of corruption is one that I’ve seen most people find really difficult to recover from. One may recover fully after an illness, but recovering from a corrupt act may never be full.