A 23-year-old lady based in Nkoabang, Yaounde has confessed to lacing a meal for sale with a harmful substance.
The lady named Carol who is a mother of two confessed after she was caught in the act in the morning of August 29th, 2022.
The brother to the lady who sells pap told MMI that his sister had left her young daughter to watch over the merchandise after morning sales, retired home to do a few chores when Carol carried out the act.
“Upon return, she opened the pot and noticed that the colour of the pap had changed. It had turned into black. She asked the child who explained that a lady named Carol had visited the spot and opened the pot,” he explained.
“Carol was the only one who had visited the business site,” the child testified.
The source went on that the lady was questioned by the pap seller but both kept it between them. It was until the business lady confided in her landlord that she was made to understand the purpose of the action.
“It took days for her to accept she was responsible,” said the pap seller.
“Her landlord asked how she could be quiet over such an incident … enraged, the population visited the perpetrator who confessed,” he added.
Landlord intervenes
Both ladies had agreed to keep the incident ‘low-key’ until the pap seller’s landlord got wind of it.
He urged the pap seller to speak up, warning her about the repercussions that could follow in case the substance was truly harmful as suspected.
“She then inform her relatives and neighbors who decided to handle the matter by confronting Carol,” explained the pap seller’s brother.
Carol pleads her case
In another video which MMI laid hands on, Carol was questioned but feigned ignorance as to the harmfulness of the product she smeared into the pap.
“She is new to the quarter so I have never had any problem with her,” she said of the pap seller.
“I took *puff puff* for 100 FCFA and when I reached for the plastic papers, the kid said her mother had instructed her not to give them out and so proposed giving her a cement bag,” Carol explained, adding that “on Sunday she saw me and told me she saw her pap have a different colour and she poured it. She never spoke of poison. I apologized for the change of colour.”
But Carol’s troubles were far from being over, even after the pap seller asked her never to come close to her business place.
On Saturday, the issue was again evoked, she testified, stating that a neighbor called her and asked what issue she had with the pap seller.
“I found her and apologized again and she said she had forgiven me…”.
Still, the following day, the pap seller again visited her. This time, with her husband and some young men from the quarter.
“I told them I never put anything in the pot”
She noted that she was however threatened with torture for maintaining her stance.
Quizzed further, she denied confirming if it was a poisonous substance, but said what she put into the meal was finished.
“I don’t know what it was but I just had to put it in the meal… I was putting it to sabotage her pap,” she testified.
Carol subsequently, was made to sign an undertaking to bear the consequences should anything go wrong with anyone who consumed the pap. While she appears to have narrowly missed hail thanks to the undertaking, Carol is yet to completely evade misery.
Her husband is said to have thrown her out of the house following the incident, leaving her more stranded and helpless.
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