Trust ye not in A FRIEND, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are those of his own house. – Micah 7: 5-8
How would you rate the man at your gate, who opens your gate every morning as you drive out and every night as you drive in? What can you say of the man that drives you, the one that drives your spouse and your children to and from school. Who serves you food everyday? Who are the people in your home: the washerman, the plumber, the electrician? Who are the friends who visit you or your children? Their lesson teacher at home and all the others that you trust so much. When the former Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), 78-year-old Professor Albert Ilemobade was declared missing, nobody imagined he was butchered by those of his own house-hold. Nobody imagined his lifeless body would be found decomposing inside the garage of his Ijapo Estate, Akure home. Nobody imagined Prof. Ilemobade was killed by two of his domestic workers, his former driver Olayemi Bamitale and the security guard Daniel Ita. The duo admitted strangling the ex-FUTA VC to death with the aim of stealing his recently purchased Toyota RAV 4 SUV. In their confessions, they admitted calling out the old man from his window and he came out through the kitchen. They told him a fire outbreak had occurred and immediately he came out, one of his domestic staff pounced on him and strangled him till he died. They dropped his body at the store near the car park so that people would not see. The above narration is a familiar scenario in the Nigeria society. They are in every home. The cook. The gardener. The driver. The house keeper. The maiguard. And so on. Some are good. Some are bad. Others are ugly. They also include the pastor you trust so much and allow into your home. Your children’s’ teachers. Visiting relatives. Or even a live-in-lover, etc. The ‘house-help’, ‘domestic’ or ‘servant’ has become synonymous with most elite families in Nigeria. These people who work behind closed doors in private homes carrying out domestic chores including cleaning of rooms and furniture, washing of clothes and plates, preparing food, running errands and escorting their employers’ children to and from school’. But Nigerians go for them with a reckless abandon. In these days when both the man and his wife struggle for space in the boardroom, the family is left at the mercy of these strangers. Professor Ilemobade was not the only victim of his own employees.

More to come....stay tuned

The litany of woes The cases of Nigerians killed or robbed by their domestic staff are rampant. About a year ago, the Orekoya family on Lawanson Road, Surulere, Lagos employed a house-help who later disappeared with their three children a day after she was employed. The house-help was reportedly contracted via OLX, an online sales portal. The house-help had applied and a day after getting the job, she hit the family and disappeared with their three children. But for the grace of God in the life of men, those children would have been history. The three kids were later found in an uncompleted building at Akowonjo, an Egbeda area of the metropolis of Lagos state. Police authorities claimed that the kidnappers abandoned the kids in the building when they knew that the police were closing in on them. In her confessional statement to the police, the house- help claimed she was allegedly pushed into the act by her husband. According to her, the family runs a kidnapping business, adding that her husband was the head of the gang. When she was paraded at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja, she said it was the second time she was involved in the abduction of children in the state. She said the first was the kidnapping of two kids in the Magodo area of Lagos State. A member of the family of the kidnapped victims alleged that the couple paid millions of naira as ransom before the kids were freed. Just recently, a driver to a Port Harcourt-based lawyer identified as Jerry Igiri was arrested by operatives of the Rivers State Police Command for kidnapping his employer’s four-year-old son. After committing the crime, the driver still had the effrontery to join a search party that tried without success for 17 days to locate the boy he handed over to his kidnap gang. The boy was taken away inside their house while her mother was preparing his lunch after he arrived from school. The driver had handed the four-year-old boy to a lady, who is a member of the kidnap gang and immediately, pretended to be sleeping in his employer’s car while the mother, Mrs. Tenelor searched for her child around the compound to no avail. The family was lucky. The police suspected foul play and worked on it. The driver confessed to the woman that he arranged the kidnap of her son, blaming his action on the work of the devil. He had worked with Mrs Tenelor for four years and was trusted. The family never knew he was bidding his time. Last December, one Solomon Michael, a driver and suspected kidnapper confessed that he robbed and plotted the kidnap of his boss, one Alhaja Modupe Idris, a business tycoon in Idumota and her sister, Alhaja Risikat Laminu. The suspect who was paraded at the Lagos State Police command, Ikeja alongside four others told the police that four others assisted him in executing the plot. Solomon Michael had arranged with his gang to trail Alhaja Modupe from her shop to Surulere area in Lagos, at 9:30p.m, where they hit her vehicle from the back, feigning an accident. Immediately her driver, Michael, stopped the vehicle to check the extent of damage the accident caused, the gang struck, robbed and kidnapped Alhaja Modupe, her sister, Alhaja Laminu and her housemaid, who were inside a black Toyota SUV with number plate-LSR871BM. They were said to have also collected N1.2 million and other valuables from her before taking them to a bush somewhere at Ijebu-Ode area. In his confession to the police, Michael said, “I plotted to rob and kidnap my boss because she was maltreating me...” In Calabar, an alleged attempt by one Mr Hope Akpan , driver to the owner of TUNS 7 showroom in Calabar, Mr. Tunde Osisanya, to kidnap his boss failed. Akpan, who allegedly arranged the kidnap of Osisanya was later picked up at Ugep, Yakurr Local Government Area, with another member of his gang. Luckily, Osisanya miraculously escaped after an armed gang of three in collaboration with his driver attempted to kidnap him. Osisanya and his driver were going somewhere when suddenly, the driver stopped on the road in the broad-day light pretending that the car had developed fault. He went out of the driver’s seat, opened the trunk of the car and came back to his seat. A group of boys suddenly jumped into the vehicle, dragged the owner of the car out and tried to force him into the trunk of the car. They threatened to shoot him, but after all efforts to force him into the car trunk failed, they brought him back to the back seat and at gun point, forced him into the back seat of the car. While this was happening, the driver did not bother to engage the gear. It was after he knew that the assailants had forced Osasanya in that he moved the car. But divine intervention helped him escape while the group drove off with his car and valuables. The car was spotted the next day somewhere in Ugep, Yakurr LGA, after the attention of natives was drawn to strange boys and a vehicle parked in an uncompleted building. They were all arrested and they made confessional statements to the police.

I saw a video recently (acted I guess but very factual), where a little girl asked her mother about the househelp.
Daughter: Mummy, why is aunty joy always working and doing everything
Mother: because she is paid to do so
D: why does she take me to school
M: part of her job
D: why do u lock ur room when u are not around
M: I don't trust her, she could steal my money or jewelry
D: but u trust her with me. Are ur jewelry more important than me to u?
M:.......dumbfounded........
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@Op.... search and attach to ur post.

Your cook can poison you In April last year, two cooks, who are nationals of Benin Republic, Victor Hounkpe and David Amusu, poisoned their employer’s meal so as to cart away valuable items from the house. The cooks identified as Victor Hounkpe and David Amusu were arrested by the Lagos State Police Command after poisoning their employers’ meal in the Lekki area of the state. Their ordeal began on Wednesday, April 22, when 34-year-old Victor Hounkpe, allegedly poisoned a vegetable soup he prepared for the family. Shortly after consuming the poisonous soup, the husband, Nwogu Chinaka, reportedly started complaining of severe stomach ache and collapsed, and was taken to a nearby hospital by his wife, Omowunmi. The wife also collapsed at the hospital gate after complaining of severe stomach pain. Both couple were said to have been treated in the same hospital. The security guards and other domestic workers who ate the poisoned meal also became unconscious and were hospitalised. Both Hounkpe and Amusu were said to have fled the house. When the police eventually caught them, the cook, Victor Hounkpe, a Beninoise,confessed that the plan was to inject poison into the food of his boss and his entire household and later steal his belongings. Hounkpe, who was placed on a monthly salary of N50,000, confessed that his friend, the couple’s former cook, was his accomplice in the dastardly act.