WAEC 1989 ENGLISH LANGUAGE THEORY QUESTION
6. Narrate an experience you have had or heard about which illustrates the saying: ‘Honesty is the best policy.’

Sample Answer

HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

Mr. Rasaki was a professional driver, a poor one for that matter. Apart from his wife and few children, his worthiest property or belonging was his rickety Peugeot 504 salon car which he drives about in Lagos for taxi car cab business. Quite often passengers would forget one item or the other in his car. He honestly and conscientiously took such articles or money back to his branch of the taxi cab drivers’ association office so that the owners of the discovered items could recover them. Each time he discovered any such items he would report and submit them to the officials of this association. He often told his wife and one of his close friends who incidentally was a taxi cab operator too. Mrs. Rasaki would scold her husband for his abnormal passion of always wanting to be a perpetual poor man, as it were.

Mr. Segun Jinadu, Rasaki’s friend, saw nothing wrong with keeping, for personal use, items or money forgetfully left behind his taxi cab. He never returned anything to his association. He always re-assure himself that afterall God has many ways of blessing a person. So, whenever Rasaki told him that he returned one big parcel or some small amount of money to the lost-and-found section of their drivers’ association, Mr. Jinadu would laugh at him and call him a big fool who would die a poorer man than he was then.

There was this day when a rich European businessman and his equally rich Ibo business friend forgot one of their suitcases containing money in Mr. Rasaki’s taxi. He immediately took it to the drivers’ park where the suitcase was opened and half a million naira was found therein. He went to the radio station where it was announced that the two men who forgot a suitcase in his cab earlier in the day should come to his house to retrieve their item and that he was waiting for them in a specific address. Mr. David Frank and Mr. Daniel Okafor who had been making frantic efforts to trace the driver, heard the announcement of Mr. Rasaki. They took two policemen and some journalists along to Mr. Rasaki’s residence. The businessmen were out of gratitude, they gave him N50,000, while the press men took his photograph. He granted interviews to both the print and electronic media. He became a celebrity overnight. The white man sponsored his trip to London for one week tourist’s visit and was even featured in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Some members of the public gave him different sums of money for his exemplary honesty in spite of his poor background. He even shook hands with the president who promised some assistance. Mr. Rasaki bought a new taxi cab and began to build bungalow from this windfall which was a practical realization of honesty being the best policy.

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