FOR returning N6,000,000,00 overpayment
to govt, Grade Level 10 officer received a National Award

In early December 2011, Mohammad Zakari,
of the Federal Ministry of Information,
received an account credit alert on his
mobile phone, which he thought would be
for his November 2011 salary of
N62,000.00.
“When I
received the alert, I became blind. I thought
it was just N6,000.
“I was wondering what I did wrong for my
office to pay me a salary of N6000 until I
showed a friend who told me it was
N6,000,000 not N6,000.

When Zakari confided in his mother, she
told him to return the money.
“The only thing you will do is to ask them to
give you N1million to complete your
building in the village,” his mother told him.
He continued: “Same day, I got the alert, I
told my wife, something entered into my
account and she asked how much it was.
“I told her it was N6 million and that may be
that was how God wanted to bless me.”
But she disagreed, telling her husband:
“God does not bless people like that. If God
wants to bless you, he will open
opportunities for you to work so that
money can come. Money will not just come
from heaven to enter into your account.’
“My wife gave me the guts to return that
money,” he told The Guardian.
He also reported the overpayment to his
superiors.
But he has suffered reproach from his
friends who told him: “You can never be
rich…they sent that kind of money into
your account and you returned it?
“Some of them don’t talk to me anymore
because of what I did.”
For his honesty, however, Zakari was
among the 155 Nigerians given National
Honours as he was conferred with an
Award of Member of the Order of the
Federal Republic (MFR).

Zakari, a native of Garun-Mallam Local
Council of Kano State, joined the Federal Civil
Service as Information Officer II in 2000
and was posted to Federal Ministry of
Water Resources, Abuja.
After a stint at the National Film and Video
Censors Board, is at present with the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development as a Senior Information
officer in the Minister’s office.

ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99297:an-mfr-for-honest-mohammed-zakari-&catid=3:metro&Itemid=558