I read on facebook the other day an advert posted by a couple announcing that their three kids were missing. The kids, aged 6, 4 and 11 months, had been taken out by their parents’ house help, who was said to have resumed work the previous day. Those parents said the house help took the kids out at 8 am the day after she took up her job and never returned. As expected, they said their hearts were broken and they had cried out their eyes without knowing what to do next. They appealed to anyone who sees the kids to call the phone numbers provided in the message.
The grieving parents did not mention their location in the message, but I later learnt that the ugly incident took place in Lagos and the house help was recruited online. At the time of writing this piece, the incident had turned out to be a kidnapping case as the house help was said to have demanded N15million ransom which was later reduced to N13million.
My heart goes out to those parents who are forced to cope with not knowing where their kids are. I can’t imagine what Mr. and Mrs. Orekoya must have been going through since that incident happened. It must be a nightmare for them. I join other well-wishers to pray for the safe return of those kids.
Having said that, I must also say that this worrisome incident is a warning to all parents especially mothers to beware of who they employ as house helps and in what manner they recruit domestic servants. To have employed that house help online means they most certainly do not know her roots and so cannot trace her to her relatives. This is because someone who could disappear with another person’s kids would have submitted fake documents and provided fake information about herself to her prospective employers. To put one’s kids in the care of a total stranger is rather too risky. Good-natured people tend to be too trusting, thinking everyone is like them. But the world is full of wicked people and most of them can really pretend to be good with the aim of fooling unsuspecting or gullible people. Besides, the internet is a very wrong place to recruit a house help from, because there is no way to verify the information supplied by the prospective house help and there is no one to guarantee that she would be of good behaviour. So many criminally-minded characters are online, and they have killed or ruined several people they met on that platform who erroneously engaged in business or romantic relationships with them.
I further read in a national daily that Mrs Orekoya said she advertised for a new nanny on the OLX website because their former nanny failed to resume work on Saturday and Sunday after her annual leave, and they were going to resume work on Monday, so they urgently needed someone to look after the kids. What the couple should have done was to scout for a good Day Care Centre to keep the kids. They could have made some phone calls to their friends and colleagues or contacted their neighbours to inquire about such centre if they didn’t know of one, rather than hurriedly employing someone they knew nothing about. I even learnt that there are agencies in Lagos through which people can employ house helps or nannies.
Last week, I posted an article in this space entitled ‘The Dangers of Irresponsible Motherhood’. The article dealt with how careless or reckless behaviours of mothers could endanger the lives of their kids. The mother of those three missing kids could be one of the good-natured people who easily trust others. But it is obvious that there was an error of judgement in entrusting her kids to a total stranger. Her action amounted to carelessness because she ought to have studied the character of her new house help for some time before leaving the kids alone with her. I didn’t think anyone would be that careless again after the recent Uganda episode in which a house help meted out the worst inhuman treatment to a kid, not knowing that a hidden camera in the house was capturing her every brutal move. When the parents of the child watched the ugly incident, they promptly got her arrested and she was prosecuted and jailed for her wickedness.
After that episode, another one happened in Kuwait where a house help was caught maltreating a two-month-old baby. These incidents were supposed to have taught parents especially mothers a lesson about leaving their kids in the care of people whose character they cannot vouch for. The Holy Writ says the heart of man is desperately wicked. So, we must beware of strangers and deal with people generally with caution and wisdom. Mothers must be aware of the fact that they are responsible for their kids and any wrong decisions they make will affect those innocent kids negatively. As I said in that article, we are custodians of the children that God gave us and we will account to Him some day about how we cared for them. We are to protect and care for them until they are old enough to stand on their own. There is, therefore, need for mothers to demonstrate a high sense of responsibility in performing the onerous task of motherhood. This will keep the children safe and also save the parents from the agony and frustration that the Orekoyas are going through now.
The grieving parents did not mention their location in the message, but I later learnt that the ugly incident took place in Lagos and the house help was recruited online. At the time of writing this piece, the incident had turned out to be a kidnapping case as the house help was said to have demanded N15million ransom which was later reduced to N13million.
My heart goes out to those parents who are forced to cope with not knowing where their kids are. I can’t imagine what Mr. and Mrs. Orekoya must have been going through since that incident happened. It must be a nightmare for them. I join other well-wishers to pray for the safe return of those kids.
Having said that, I must also say that this worrisome incident is a warning to all parents especially mothers to beware of who they employ as house helps and in what manner they recruit domestic servants. To have employed that house help online means they most certainly do not know her roots and so cannot trace her to her relatives. This is because someone who could disappear with another person’s kids would have submitted fake documents and provided fake information about herself to her prospective employers. To put one’s kids in the care of a total stranger is rather too risky. Good-natured people tend to be too trusting, thinking everyone is like them. But the world is full of wicked people and most of them can really pretend to be good with the aim of fooling unsuspecting or gullible people. Besides, the internet is a very wrong place to recruit a house help from, because there is no way to verify the information supplied by the prospective house help and there is no one to guarantee that she would be of good behaviour. So many criminally-minded characters are online, and they have killed or ruined several people they met on that platform who erroneously engaged in business or romantic relationships with them.
I further read in a national daily that Mrs Orekoya said she advertised for a new nanny on the OLX website because their former nanny failed to resume work on Saturday and Sunday after her annual leave, and they were going to resume work on Monday, so they urgently needed someone to look after the kids. What the couple should have done was to scout for a good Day Care Centre to keep the kids. They could have made some phone calls to their friends and colleagues or contacted their neighbours to inquire about such centre if they didn’t know of one, rather than hurriedly employing someone they knew nothing about. I even learnt that there are agencies in Lagos through which people can employ house helps or nannies.
Last week, I posted an article in this space entitled ‘The Dangers of Irresponsible Motherhood’. The article dealt with how careless or reckless behaviours of mothers could endanger the lives of their kids. The mother of those three missing kids could be one of the good-natured people who easily trust others. But it is obvious that there was an error of judgement in entrusting her kids to a total stranger. Her action amounted to carelessness because she ought to have studied the character of her new house help for some time before leaving the kids alone with her. I didn’t think anyone would be that careless again after the recent Uganda episode in which a house help meted out the worst inhuman treatment to a kid, not knowing that a hidden camera in the house was capturing her every brutal move. When the parents of the child watched the ugly incident, they promptly got her arrested and she was prosecuted and jailed for her wickedness.
After that episode, another one happened in Kuwait where a house help was caught maltreating a two-month-old baby. These incidents were supposed to have taught parents especially mothers a lesson about leaving their kids in the care of people whose character they cannot vouch for. The Holy Writ says the heart of man is desperately wicked. So, we must beware of strangers and deal with people generally with caution and wisdom. Mothers must be aware of the fact that they are responsible for their kids and any wrong decisions they make will affect those innocent kids negatively. As I said in that article, we are custodians of the children that God gave us and we will account to Him some day about how we cared for them. We are to protect and care for them until they are old enough to stand on their own. There is, therefore, need for mothers to demonstrate a high sense of responsibility in performing the onerous task of motherhood. This will keep the children safe and also save the parents from the agony and frustration that the Orekoyas are going through now.
By Nike Oluwole.
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