A CANADIAN COUPLE who lost their winning $50 million lotto ticket have collected the prize after it was found by a member of their church parish.
Hakeem Nosiru told the Toronto Sun that he ran through the aisles of the convenience store shouting and crying after he won the jackpot in January.
He gave the ticket to his wife Abiola for safe-keeping but after they went to church the next day it had disappeared. “I couldn’t sleep for days, I couldn’t eat. I was devastated,” Abiola told the paper.
When Hakeem found out she had lost it, he wasn’t mad, he said, it was in God’s hands. “God gave us the money,” he said. “We lose the ticket and eventually we found it. Thank God for that.”
The couple went through months of filling out paperwork with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation in an attempt to claim their prize. Then, on April Fool’s Day, a member of their church parish called, telling them she’d found the ticket.
The OLG couldn’t pay out the jackpot without the ticket and a police investigation ensued. When the ticket was found police established that it was the property of the Nosiru’s and that there was no criminality involved.
Yesterday, the couple finally got their hands on their $50 million cheque. “We are relieved, we are very excited, we are very happy,” Abiola said. “We’re going to relax with our (four) children and our (five) grandchildren.”
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