I almost swallowed ₦3 million worth of gold because I was hungry. Yesterday afternoon, I stopped at a roadside beans joint like every normal Nigerian who’s trying to survive the economy. Nothing special. Just beans, fried plantain, and enough pepper to wake up your ancestors. I was halfway through the meal when I bit something hard. KPAK! At first, I thought it was a stone. You know how beans sellers sometimes accidentally leave small particles inside food. Annoyed, I removed it from my mouth and was about to throw it away. Then I noticed something strange. It was unusually heavy. I rubbed it against my shirt. It sparkled. I looked at it again. And again. This definitely wasn’t a stone. An old man sitting beside me noticed my expression. “Oga, wetin happen?” I showed him. The man stared for a few seconds and said something that made me lose my appetite instantly. “My brother, this thing look like gold o.” Gold? Inside roadside beans? Abeg. Even I couldn’t believe it. I quickly wrapped it in a tissue and went home. That evening, I called my closest friend. He arrived, looked at it, turned it around for a few minutes, then said the exact thing the old man said: “Omo… this fit be gold.” At that point, my heart was beating like I had just seen an EFCC invitation letter. The next morning, we took it to a jeweler. The man examined it quietly for what felt like forever. Then he asked: “Where exactly did you get this?” That question alone nearly gave me hypertension. After I explained everything, he nodded and said: “This is real gold.” Real. Gold. According to him, it weighed about 20 grams. Immediately, everybody became a financial adviser. One friend said, “Sell am immediately.” Another said, “Keep it. God has answered your prayers.” My mum said, “Return it.” My uncle said, “Someone is probably looking for that gold.” For the first time in my life, I realized that finding money is actually easier than deciding what to do with it. Eventually, I went back to the beans seller to tell her what happened. The woman nearly collapsed. After a long conversation, she explained that her late husband used to work around mining areas years ago and some of his old belongings had recently been mixed with bags of stored beans. Nobody can say for certain how the gold got there. But somehow, out of hundreds of customers and thousands of spoonfuls of beans… It landed in my plate. Life is funny. One minute you’re looking for lunch. The next minute you’re holding something worth more than your monthly salary. Before anyone starts asking for the location of the beans seller 😅, this story is fictional, inspired by everyday Nigerian experiences and the question that has been disturbing me since I imagined it: If you found a 20-gram piece of gold inside your roadside beans, would you keep it, return it, or sell it?

Three weeks ago, I bought a gas burner from a shop for ₦30,500. Got home, installed it, but didn’t test it immediately because I was using a temporary cylinder. Fast forward to yesterday. I finally turned it on and discovered the burner was faulty. Instead of producing a proper flame, gas was leaking from the side of the burner head. A serious safety risk. I went back to the same shop. The owner wasn’t around, so I explained the issue to his daughter. She asked a few questions to confirm I had actually bought it there and apologized for the experience. Then came the shocking part. I asked for a replacement burner. Same brand. Same model. Same shop. The price? ₦2,500. The exact burner I was sold for ₦30,500 just three weeks earlier. At that moment, I wasn’t even angry about the faulty burner anymore. I was trying to understand how something can jump from ₦2,500 to ₦30,500 simply because a customer walked into your shop. Maybe it was because I drove there and parked outside. Maybe he assumed I wouldn’t know the real price. But this is exactly why many people struggle to trust businesses. Making profit is one thing. Taking advantage of customers is another. Has anything like this happened to you before? 🤔 #Nigeria# #ConsumerRights# #MarketExperience#