NINE YEARS AFTER FUNERAL, YOUNG LADY WALKS INTO LAGOS COMPOUND AND SEES HER DEAD MOTHER SELLING PUFF-PUFF

Aminat’s life had been built on one lie: her mother, Mama Zainab, was dead. The funeral nine years ago had been heart-wrenching. Her father, Alhaji Kabir, had insisted she stay away from the coffin. Neighbors cried. The village mourned. Aminat grieved. Everyone believed she had lost her mother forever.

Then came a message that shattered her reality: “Your mother is alive. She’s in Ikorodu.”

Aminat thought it was a scam. But when she saw a Facebook profile with her mother’s face older, thinner, selling snacks, interacting with neighbors she knew she had to see it for herself.

She boarded a night bus to Lagos without telling anyone. When she arrived at a cramped, dusty compound, she almost dropped her bag. Under a mango tree, frying puff-puff in a battered pan, was her mother. Aminat froze. Her mother looked up, gasped, and whispered her name: “Aminat?”

But the reunion was far from simple. Her mother revealed secrets that made Aminat’s stomach turn. After a violent fight with her father years ago, she had fled the house. Alhaji Kabir staged her death, bribed the village chief, the local imam, and even some relatives. There had been a fake funeral, fake burial prayers, and an entire village tricked into mourning a living woman.

The scandal didn’t stop there. Aminat discovered that her father had been secretly collecting her mother’s pension, claiming it for “family expenses,” while her mother survived on meager earnings selling puff-puff. Relatives had signed false documents, claiming property transfers in her absence. And worse, there were rumors that he threatened neighbors who suspected the truth, warning them to keep quiet or risk harm.

Aminat went public. She recorded her father confessing to the lies, bribery, and deception. The audio clip went viral in their community. Villagers were outraged. Elders admitted their part in the fake funeral. Even distant relatives confessed that they had covered up letters and documents to make the death seem real.

Today, Aminat and her mother live together in Abuja. She hasn’t forgiven her father. But she says finding her mother, alive and fighting, was worth unearthing nine years of lies, fake mourning, hidden money, and a secret life selling puff-puff under a mango tree.

The community is still buzzing. Nine years of lies, a faked death, stolen inheritance, and a mother living a secret life all uncovered because a daughter refused to let social media whispers go unanswered.