Taxi driver — who had no money for food, fuel — returns passenger’s bag of money

Damilare Adesiyan, a taxi driver in Ibadan, did the unthinkable by returning a bag filled with money at a time when his pockets ran dry.

Not only did he make sure the passenger get back his N170,000, the driver also returned valuables forgotten in his taxi.

Johnson Abbaly, a Facebook user, who shared the story on the social media platform, said Adesiyan took the bag, a laptop and mobile phones, to Mokola police station.

In a chat with TheCable Lifestyle, Adesiyan revealed that on the day of the incident, he had been unable to give his wife money for food and was also forced to fuel his taxi on credit.

“I am a taxi driver and a passenger boarded my cab at Mokola roundabout, he was going to Iwo road and dropped his bag in the booth of the car. He forgot the bag when he was alighting; I tried to look for him but I could not find him.

“I parked in a corner and searched the bag because I was scared that the bag could contain incriminating things. I found a laptop, money and phones in the bag. Then I took the bag to the nearest police station which happened to be Mokola police station.

“On getting there, I did not tell the police that I had searched the bag before coming. Then we contacted the owner of the bag and he came to the police station to pick the bag.

“Before I left the house that day, I had no money with me and I had to collect fuel on credit at the fuel station to work.

“I could not even give my wife money to eat for that day and we have two children. Although I can’t really afford it, my children are in school; the first is in Primary two and the second is in Nursery two.”

The Ibadan-based taxi driver said he hid the incident from friends and that the owner of the bag compensated him with N5,000.

“I returned it because I knew that the bag was not mine and keeping it might cause trouble for me. On returning the bag, the owner of the bag gave me 5,000 naira.

“I didn’t tell anyone that I found money apart from my wife but I have been receiving calls because the owner of the bag told me that he posted it on Facebook.

“I only told one of the road transport union workers and he told me that I should have told him that I shouldn’t have returned the bag and I told him that I had no use for it that it might have caused more trouble for me.”