A Nigerian consultant, Olasupo Abideen has refunded the sum of 2,397USD (about 1.29 million naira) that was erroneously paid into his bank account by an organisation he consulted for.
Olasupo, who is also Executive Director of Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative (BBYDI) and a trained alumnus of both Harvard Business School and Lagos Business School, was engaged as Business Development Consultant with startups across three different continents under the FCDO CovidAction funded project.
He had on May 28, 2021, received payment for a Technical Assistant role he delivered to a Bangladesh startup mCare, before he was mistakingly paid again for the same job on Friday, 13th of August.
Olasupo, surprised when he got the alert, told The Ravens NG that he reached out to the organization via email to inform them of the error and that he was not expecting such payment from them as he had already been paid for the work done. He subsequently refunded the money to the organisation’s bank account on Monday 16th of May, 2021.
The organisation thanked him for the swift response, and also appreciated his honesty, accountability and transparency.
In a chat with this medium, Olasupo said as an advocate of transparency and accountability in leadership and governance, it behooves on him to demonstrate what he preaches, stressing that he has not done anything special or extraordinary.
The consultant added that he was also putting into practice the transparency and prevention of corruption training he received at the UNGASS. Olasupo was in May 2021, selected alongside Chioma Ogbonna to represent Nigeria in a virtual youth Forum of the United Nations Special Session of the General Assembly (UNGASS) on challenges and measures to prevent and combat corruption and strengthen international cooperation.
It is worthy of mention that the hardship in the land may trigger anyone to misbehave with such money, especially when it runs into million. But the level of accountability Mr. Olasupo Abideen demonstrated, presents a good image of young people and average Nigerians.
