A 14-year-old teenager who attempted to eliminate her boss for rebuking her promiscuous life. IDOWU ADELUSI reports

A 14-year-old house help, Mariam Sunday, who attempted to eliminate her boss through food poisoning, jolted listeners by saying that she took the step because her boss was against her promiscuous life.

Mariam who is from Benue State hinted that she had many boy friends but gave three unfetted access to have sex with her.

The teenager who had been staying with Mrs Nike Alebede Adeniran since the beginning of this year, Sunday Tribune gathered, had attempted to kill the woman on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at their residence in Ojoo area of Ibadan.

At around 8 p.m, on Wednesday, Mrs Adeniran who sells wine at Ojoo, Ibadan, instructed Mariam to take to the house a plate of rice which she( Mrs Adeniran) had bought  to eat that night. But when Mariam  got home, she poured a substance suspected to be rat poison inside the food, mixed it up and covered the plate.

However, when Mrs Adeniran came home 30 minutes later, she picked the food where Mariam had kept it, but a bad odour from the food put her off.

When she told Mariam what she noticed,and asked whether she had put something inside the food, she said no, but she later  confessed of poisoning the food.

When asked why she did that, Mariam said, “My boss was fond of abusing me, disgracing me publicly for sleeping with different men, and had prevented me from going out to see my boy friends.She had been monitoring my movement, and I don’t like it.”

When asked how much she charged those making love with her, Mariam said “I don’t charge any fee. I have three boy friends who often have sex with me, I enjoy the act, and when Mrs Adeniran tried to stop me from going out to see these friends, I conceived the idea of killing her.

“I bought the medicine on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 and hid it in the house. I had conceived the plan long ago. My boss has not maltreated me, and has never denied me food or cloth to wear. Her offence was just that she didn’t allow me to go out.”

Reacting, Mrs Adeniran said, “Mariam’s father brought her to stay with me as house help. Her father begged me, saying the mother of Mariam was sick and needed money to take care of her before I could accept Mariam to stay with me.  I treated her like one of my children.

“She was the only one at home with me because my children are staying in boarding house. I pay a monthly rent of N5,000 on the girl, and her father used to come to collect the rent.

“She was promiscuous. If I send her on an errand, she would detour to see her boy friends and when she comes back, her hair would be filled with particules and her private part messy.

“Because of that, I stopped sending her on errand at night time.Later she tried to outsmart me by sneaking out  of the house after I had slept. I detected  it,  punished her for that.

“Actually, I noticed that the food was smelling bad odour and I asked if she had put anything inside the food. Initially, she denied poisoning the food. But when I threatened to beat her, she confessed that she put rat poison inside the food. She said that she had planned to kill me because I rebuked her publicly and also prevented her from going out to mess up her body with men.

“When I told her to eat part of the food, she refused. I refused forcing her to eat the food because I don’t want her to die and be accused of murder.

“I later conducted a thorough search on the house if I could see the wrapper of the medicine, I later saw that she had torn  into pieces and threw outside.”

When asked if she had informed the police, Mrs Adeniran said she had not but would only go and inform the police of the development and not that she want the girl to be prosecuted.

“I had not planned to hand over the girl to the police for prosecution but preferred keeping the girl till her father comes by the end of December and handed her back to him.