In 2017, I left my hometown and travelled to Lagos in search of greener pastures. I eventually found work as a house help inside Magodo-Isheri. The salary was small, but I did everything with love — cooking, cleaning, laundry, and keeping the house in order. Their children were grown, so at least I wasn’t a nanny. I treated the lastborn like my younger sister, and the older son like my big brother.
Even though I never liked calling anyone who wasn’t my parent “Mummy” or “Daddy,” they insisted, and I respected it. I served them wholeheartedly. So the day I was accused of trying to poison them felt like the ground opened beneath my feet.
The Day Everything Turned Upside Down
It was a Wednesday — the usual “swallow day” in the house. I went to the market as usual, bought ingredients, and cooked a rich pot of ogbono soup with goat meat, shaki, ponmo and enough palm oil. The soup was perfect when I left the kitchen.
As a RCCG family, we always attended midweek service, and my Oga was an Assistant Pastor. So all of us went to church in Ketu. After service, we got stuck in Otedola Bridge traffic and didn’t return home until 9pm.
Everyone was tired and hungry.
My madam, still singing after the uplifting service, washed her hands and opened the pot of soup. Immediately, she screamed. A loud, sharp, terrifying scream. Everyone ran downstairs. I was beside her and almost collapsed.
The soup was completely black — charcoal black.
My madam instantly switched into prayer mode. Speaking in tongues, she declared that the “enemy” had failed, that they had used me to kill her family, but God had exposed everything.
I was confused and trembling.
“Eat the Food You Poisoned!”
Before I could make sense of the situation, she called the whole family and accused me of poisoning them. She ordered me to eat the food in front of everyone.
At that moment, I honestly feared for my life. What if this was a setup? Who would fight for a poor house girl in Nigeria?
But I knew I did nothing wrong.
So I prayed silently, dipped the eba into the blackened soup, and ate it — while she watched closely.
Thirty minutes passed. Nothing happened.
But inside me, something broke. I remembered how life had dragged me from a comfortable home into servanthood. How my family went from doing well to struggling for survival. And now, after all my hard work, I was being accused of something so evil.
My Oga Returns… and the Truth Begins to Unfold
My Oga wasn’t home at the time because he stayed back at church to finish some work. When he arrived, I helped him carry his things inside as I always did, struggling to hold back tears.
He noticed instantly.
After the lastborn explained what happened, he went to the kitchen to inspect the soup himself. He called me and asked what could have gone wrong. Through tears, I told him I genuinely had no idea.
He faced his wife.
He asked her why she would think I would ever harm them. He reminded her how many times I’d cooked without any issue. He was angry she made me eat the food.
Then he did something that shocked everyone:
He dished the soup and ate it himself.
His daughter also joined him, defending me. She said someone who stayed up all night with her when she was sick, cleaning her vomit while the entire house slept, could never want to harm her.
Nothing happened to them either.
The Real Cause of the Problem
The next day, I went back to the market to confront the woman who sold and grinded the ogbono. She apologized. Someone had previously brought black seeds to grind, and she forgot to clean the machine before grinding mine.
That was the entire problem.
I Still Had to Leave
Even after the truth came out, my madam was furious that her husband supported me. She insisted I must leave the house.
And so it was settled — I would leave the next day.
But as if the entire ordeal wasn’t enough, something else happened on the day I left:
Their security dog bit me.
But that is a story for another day.
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