A man has used a young child as deposit for two bags of rice, promising to return to pay and then take the child home.
It turned out that the child was a complete stranger to the rice buyer, making it impossible for the rice seller to trace his debtor.
The incident happened in Lagos, according to the Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, SP Benjamin Hundeyin.
Consequently, Hundeyin warns traders to be wary of customers who buy on credit but, in a bid to assure their creditor that they would pay, sometimes leave a minor child with the seller, with a promise that they’ll return to take home their child after they might have paid.
It usually turns out that such children used as collateral are almost always unknown to the debtor, Hundeyin says.
Taking to his verified X [formerly Twitter] handle, @BenHundeyin, he tweeted:
Traders, this is for you.
Something happened for the umpteenth time yesterday. Someone approached a rice seller with a minor to buy bags of rice.
He ‘discovered’ he forgot his money at home and left his little ‘brother’ behind as assurance that he was not running away. He went away with two bags of rice.
After hours of waiting, the seller asked the minor left behind to take him to ‘their’ house. The minor denied knowing the man, saying, ‘He just saw me on the road and asked me to escort him to buy something.’
The seller took him home all the same. Meanwhile, the minor’s parents were already going through trauma looking for him.
Traders, beware! Insist that they leave with their brother or sister and bring the money before they can take any item.
