In the primary four class of a state-owned school, the
teacher, Uncle Preye, is teaching the pupils Nutrition, a topic under Primary
Science. The class is lively as the pupils take turns to give answer to
questions asked by their uncle and everything is good. The class continues that
way until the uncle asks the last but not the least question
.
.
What is food poisoning? Uncle Preye asks. To his surprise,
all the pupils, Fifty-eight in the class, raise their hands to give the answer including
Mufutau who is regarded as the last olodo. The teacher is amazed at their show
of eagerness owing to the fact that he actually saved the hardest question for
the last. In his curiosity to know their answer, he points at Oby to stand and
give the answer. With a big smile on her face, she stands and says: "Food
poisoning is when someone goes to Babalawo's place, give the Baba some money
and collect juju, then go home, put it in someone else's food, he eats and
die". The pupils in the class jam their hands together for her, but
Mufutau stands in protest that Oby's answer is not correct yet, insisting that
she missed a key word; to give the correct answer, he says: "Food
poisoning is when someone collects otumokpo from Babalawo place, put it in another
person's food, the person eats and die". The teacher is dumbfounded and
his eyes nearly pop out of his head in shock.
Sincerely, that was my view on food poisoning when I was
much younger, all thanks to those Nigerian Home Videos I watched that more often
than not cook up yeye and fake storylines with detriment to our thinking. It
was later I got to know that Food Poisoning is an illness caused by bacteria or
other toxins in food, typically with vomiting and diarrhoea. Or simply put, it
is an illness caused by eating contaminated food.
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