The popular saying that ‘good deeds shall not go unrewarded’ could best describe the emergence of an official of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Nwolbak Jonathan Konpe, and an apprentice trader, Ngwu Uchenna, as 2013 winners of the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) Integrity Award.
The duo emerged joint winners at the 2013 annual Capital Market Committee, CMC, Retreat in Abuja for “exhibiting high level of integrity in different circumstances”.
Mr. Konpe was selected for the prestigious award after he returned money in excess of N1.2 million which he recovered from a motor accident scene involving nine victims in which seven persons lost their lives; while Mr. Uchenna was selected for returning N400,000 he found in a tricycle, popularly referred to as ‘keke NAPEP’.
Mr. Konpe, it was said, upon discovering the money at the accident scene, reported it at his command from where it was returned to the owners.
Likewise, Mr. Uchenna reportedly took the money he found to ‘Ordinary’ Ahmed Musa, presenter of ‘Brekete Family’, a popular radio programme on Love FM Abuja, from where the owner was invited and the money handed back to him.
Mr. Uchenna said his action was influenced by his strong moral upbringing by the father, who, he recalls, always counseled him against taking whatever did not belong to him.
For emerging joint winners, Konpe and Uchenna were rewarded with N5million, to be split right down the middle.
The Director General of SEC, Ms. Arunma Oteh, who instituted the award in 2012 to underscore the central role integrity plays in the capital market, said N1million cash would be given to each of the winners.
Ms. Oteh said the remaining balance of N1.5million each for the winners, would be invested in the three top performing Collective Investment Schemes in the Nigerian capital markets.
The investment in Collective Investment Schemes, she pointed out, highlights SEC’s commitment to stimulating growth in the managed funds segment of the capital markets.
The scheme advertises the near risk-free status of Collective Investment Schemes as an avenue for investing in the capital market.
“The integrity award has the dual objective of rewarding honesty, integrity, purity and transparency as bedrock cultural values of capital markets and encouraging investment in Collective Investment Schemes registered in the Nigerian capital market”, Ms. Oteh said.
The SEC DG noted that only Nigerians, who exceed the call-of-duty by performing a rare act of honesty, qualify to be nominated for the award, adding that such Nigerians must be of exemplary integrity in the conduct of their personal, business or professional life.
“They must be people who have sacrificed self for a higher cause”, she said.
Ms. Oteh added that the bases for selecting the winners for the award were their rare acts of integrity and moral uprightness, which they variously exhibited.
The inaugural edition of the award in 2012 saw an Abuja Airport taxi driver, Imeh Usuah emerge winner after he returned a bag containing foreign currencies amounting to N18 million then which was left in his cab by a foreigner he picked up from the airport.
