What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Adaeze* is a 36-year-old Chief Product Officer based in London who also runs a business in Lagos. She talks about knowing since she was a teenager that she never wanted children, building a life and a marriage around that truth, and losing the person closest to her because a doctor decided a woman’s body was her husband’s business.

Can you tell me about yourself?

I’m Nigerian, born and raised, though I’ve lived in the UK for about ten years now. I did my master’s here, stayed for work, and honestly never left. I’m a Chief Product Officer at a tech company in London. I also run a business back in Lagos because Nigeria never really leaves you, no matter how long you’ve been away. The business also made more sense back home than here.

In terms of who I am as a person, I’ve always been focused and driven. I knew early what I wanted from life, and I went after it doggedly. I’m not someone who does things by accident.

I turned 36 this year, and I am married. We鈥檙e mostly happy. I don鈥檛 feel like I can really complain. I have been lucky in life.

That鈥檚 nice. How long have you been with your husband?

We’ve been married for five years. We met when I was 26, so we dated for five years before that. He’s a good man. A really good man, actually.

Tell me about your upbringing. What was your family like?

I’m an only child, which has shaped a lot of things about me. My parents were present, hardworking, and all of that. But because I had no siblings, my cousin was essentially my sister. We grew up together, spent every holiday together, and called each other about everything. She was my person. My first call for anything, good news, bad news, random Tuesday energy. She鈥檚 only 2 years older, and we were inseparable.

What was growing up as an only child in Nigeria like?

Oh, there were constant expectations around marriage and children. You know how it is. Nigerian families don’t really ask if you want something; they just assume and begin planning. Marriage was always a given. Children were always a given. Nobody sat me down and said, “What do you want your life to look like?” They just assumed they already knew.

But I was always watching. Even as a young girl, I was very observant. And what I observed growing up didn’t quite match the picture everyone was trying to sell me.

What do you mean?

I mean, I was watching the women around me. Aunties, family friends, neighbours, women in church. And I could see something happening to them that nobody was naming. This slow erosion. Who they were before motherhood, their personalities, their ambitions, their energy, just quietly disappearing. Not all of them. But enough of them that I noticed. They became a shell of who they were. A mother and a wife. Almost nothing else. 

And then there was something else I was watching. The children were carrying their parents’ unresolved pain around like it was their own. Trauma passed down like an inheritance nobody signed up for. I saw that too, and it sat with me.

How old were you when you started putting this together in your head?

Honestly, early. Fourteen, fifteen maybe. I know people hear that and they say oh you were just a child, you didn’t know. But I knew. Some things you just know about yourself, and this was one of them. I did not want to be a mother. Not because I didn’t love children, I genuinely do, but because I could see clearly what it would cost me, and I didn’t want to pay that price.

You say you love children, but you don’t want them. A lot of people struggle to hold those two things at the same time.

People find it very convenient to use that against me, actually. I volunteer at orphanages, I donate to schools, and I show up for the children in my life. And people look at that and say, “But you’re so good with them, you’d make such a great mother.” As if the only valid way to love children is to produce one of your own. I find that exhausting.

You can love something without wanting it for yourself. I love the ocean. I don’t want to live in it.

So you carried this knowing into adulthood, into relationships. When did it first come up seriously with someone you were dating?

Always immediately. I was never going to hide something that fundamental. In my early twenties, I was in a few relationships where I said it early, and the men either disappeared or tried to convince me I’d change my mind. One guy literally said, “You just haven’t met the right person yet.” I was done with him after that.

But when I met my husband at 26, something was different. He was different. And I still told him, within the first few real conversations we had, I don’t want children, I have never wanted children, and this is not something I’m going to change my mind about. You need to know this now before either of us gets any deeper.

What did he say?

He said it didn’t matter. That I was what he wanted. And I believed him completely because he meant it. I genuinely think he meant every word of it in that moment because of how he treated me in the following years. He also never brought it up or tried to convince or hijack me with it.

What was it like building a relationship with someone who accepted that part of you so fully?

It was everything, honestly. Because it wasn’t just about the children question. It was about being known. He saw me, all of me, and he wasn’t trying to edit any of it. No one had ever loved me quite the way he did. So patiently, so completely, so specifically. He knows me in a rare way, and I don’t take that lightly.

We dated for five years and then got married when I was 31. And the first two years of marriage were just genuinely good, like bliss.

What changed after two years?

He came to me and said he’d been thinking, and he thought he did want children after all.

I want to be fair to him here because this is a public conversation and he’s a good person who deserves that fairness. People change. Life shows you things you didn’t know about yourself. He was watching his friends become fathers, his siblings, people all around him. Something had shifted in him, and he was being honest with me about it. I respected the honesty.

But I was also very clear with him. I said, 鈥淚 have never lied to you. I told you from the very beginning exactly where I stood, and I told you that would not change. It hasn’t changed. Not even slightly. I have a full life. The lack of children doesn鈥檛 make me feel like anything is missing in my life.鈥�

How did he take that?

He heard me. He wasn’t aggressive about it or manipulative. But I could see the sadness in him, and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t. It became this thing that lived underneath everything. We weren’t fighting; people always imagine it must have been this explosive conflict, but it wasn’t. It was quieter and in some ways harder than a fight. Just the same conversation on a loop with no resolution. His pain on one side, my frustration on the other.

What were you frustrated about specifically?

That I had been so clear. From day one. I gave him every opportunity to walk away before either of us was in too deep, and he chose to stay, and now here we were. I wasn’t angry at him for having feelings, but I was frustrated by the situation. Because I hadn’t moved. I was exactly where I said I would always be.

And he was frustrated too, not at me exactly but at himself, at the situation. Because he knew it was unfair to ask me to change. He knew that. But he also couldn’t help what he was feeling. We were both just trapped in this very honest, very painful loop.

While all of this was happening in my marriage, something happened with my cousin.

What She Said: My Husband Bankrupted My Businesses Until My Friends Helped Me Build One He Couldn鈥檛 Find

What happened?

She got married a few years before me to a man whom her family approved of. They seemed happy. She had her first child a bit earlier than she wanted, but she loved her baby. Still, she intended to keep the minimum 4-year gap she always wanted between kids. So she went to the doctor and asked about birth control.

What happened at the doctor’s?

The first thing they asked her was, “Does Oga know?” Meaning her husband. That was the first response to a grown married woman asking her doctor about her own reproductive health. Not, 鈥榳hat are your options鈥�, not, 鈥榟ere’s what we recommend鈥�, not, 鈥榣et’s talk about what works best for your body鈥�. But 鈥淒oes your husband know you’re here?鈥�

They told her to wait. Have a second child first, and then come back.

Did she have the second child?

Yes, she did and only 2 years after. Still, she tried to go back but she got pregnant again before she could get there, just months after the second child. So now she had three pregnancies back to back.

That’s an enormous amount of strain on a body.

It is. And after the third child, she went in immediately and asked for the implant. She wasn’t waiting this time.

What happened?

They told her husband.

He was completely against it. He blocked it entirely. Wouldn’t hear of it. And he also refused to use condoms. So she had no protection and a husband who wanted more children and doctors who had already shown her whose side they were on.

What did she do?

She stopped having sex with him for over a year. Just trying to hold the line around her own body because nobody else was holding it for her.

That must have been incredibly isolating.

I can only imagine because she didn’t tell me what was happening. Not the full picture. I knew bits and pieces but not the whole truth, and that is something I will carry for a very long time.

She could feel him pulling away from her during that period. She thought he was cheating. And she was terrified of losing him, of losing her marriage, of what it would mean. So eventually she gave in, and they had unprotected sex because that was the only version on offer. And she got pregnant with the fourth child. Her body was not ready for it.

This was a pregnancy she did not want. A pregnancy she had spent over a year trying to prevent. A pregnancy that led to serious complications.

When did you find out how bad things were?

Too late. That’s the honest answer. She didn’t tell me until it was too late. I think she didn’t want me to go into warrior mode; she knew me, she knew exactly what I would do. Maybe she was ashamed. Maybe she thought she could handle it. I don’t know, and I’ll never know, and that not knowing is its own grief.

By the time I understood the full picture, I was on the first flight to Nigeria.

What did you do when you got there?

I went to that hospital, and I was very clear. What they did, disclosing her request for contraception to her husband without her consent, is a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. It is a violation of her rights as a patient. I told them I would pursue every legal avenue available if they did not take her care seriously from that point forward. I am not someone people easily dismiss. I made sure they understood that.

And I spoke to her husband. I won’t repeat exactly what I said to him, but he understood me.

Were you able to get her any protection going forward?

They agreed she would get the implant after this final pregnancy. I even started pushing for her husband to get a vasectomy since the idiot would not use condoms. I was fighting on every front I could find.

How did your fight end?

She died. The baby died too. Her body had been through too much: four pregnancies, back to back, no real recovery time between any of them, and a fourth one her system simply could not survive.

She was my sister. The person I called first for everything. And she is gone.

I’m so sorry.

The thing I keep coming back to is how preventable it was. At every single point, there was an intervention that could have changed the outcome. The doctor who asked “Does Oga know?” instead of just doing their job. The hospital that told her husband instead of protecting her privacy. The husband who decided his desire for more children was more important than her life. Any one of those moments, if it had gone differently, she might still be here.

How has losing her shaped the way you think about your own choices and about not wanting children?

It didn’t change my mind. I want to say that clearly because I think people expect me to say it did, like losing her was some kind of lesson that pushed me one way or the other. I had already decided long before any of this happened.

What it did was show me in the most devastating way possible what is at stake when women don’t have control over their own bodies. This is not abstract. This is not a debate on Twitter. Women are dying. My cousin died. Because she could not access basic healthcare. Because the system around her treated her body as something that belonged to her husband rather than to her.

My grief needed somewhere to go. So I’m building an NGO focused on women’s reproductive rights in Nigeria. Specifically, around access to contraception, patient confidentiality, and the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies without requiring anyone’s permission.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

Coming back to your marriage. You’re building this NGO, you’re carrying this grief, and you’re also navigating something very personal at home. Where are things with your husband now?

We’ve arrived somewhere. It took a long time and a lot of honest, painful conversations, but we got there together.

He wants a child. He has wanted one for a few years now, and that hasn’t gone away. I don’t want one. That hasn’t gone away either. And we love each other too much to keep asking the other person to be something they’re not.

So he’s going to have his child. Surrogacy or adoption, he hasn’t decided yet. And when that baby comes, we’ll live separately.

Wow. How did you arrive at that decision?

By being honest. About what we both needed and what we could and couldn’t give each other. I don’t think I should stand in the way of him having the thing he wants most. Just like he doesn’t think it’s fair to ask me to have a child I don’t want. So we’re trying to find the most loving version of a situation that has no perfect answer.

That’s an enormous thing to agree to. Are you scared?

Of course I am. I’m terrified of what it means, of whether we can actually make it work, of losing the version of us that has existed up until now. I love this man. I love our life. And I’m watching it change shape in real time.

But what’s the alternative? Watch him grieve something for the rest of his life that I could have stepped out of the way of? Stay in something that starts to curdle because we were too afraid to be honest? That’s not love. That’s just two people being afraid together.

Do you think it will work?

I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know. What I know is that we love each other enough to try. And if it doesn’t work, it won’t be because we lied to each other or because one of us pretended to want something they didn’t. We will have been honest every step of the way, and that matters to me.

To be loved is to be known. He knows me. I know him. Whatever comes next, that part doesn’t change.

What do you want women, especially Nigerian women, to take from your story?

That your body belongs to you. Not your husband. Not your doctor. Not your mother-in-law. Not society. You.

My cousin was a grown woman and a mother who walked into a hospital and asked for help, and the first question she was asked was whether her husband approved. That question cost her everything. It set in motion a chain of events that ended with her dying over a pregnancy she never wanted to carry.

No woman should have to negotiate access to her own healthcare. No woman should have to choose between her body and her marriage. No woman should die because the people around her decided someone else’s opinion of her body mattered more than her life.

She deserved better. They all deserve better. And that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, because if I can’t bring her back, the least I can do is make sure fewer women end up where she did.

The  is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria. Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together. .

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way.

Adanna*, 36, met the man she would spend ten years with in university. He was gentle then, attentive, and always had a way of making her feel chosen. What followed was a slow erosion of everything she had built and everything she was, driven by an addiction that grew from something she barely noticed into something that swallowed him whole and nearly took her with it. This is what she said.

Can you tell us about yourself? 

I’m Adanna, I’m 36. I work in brand management, been doing it for about eight years now. I come from a comfortable family, we were never struggling, so I always had a foundation. I started a hair business on the side a few years back that was doing well, then I tried to open a salon. Neither of them made it to where I wanted them to go. I’m based in Lagos. I’m single. 

You reached out to talk about a relationship that took a lot from you. How did it start?

We met in university. He was in my department, we had a few of the same friends. He was genuinely gentle. Soft spoken, attentive, remembered small things you mentioned in passing. He always made me feel like I was the most interesting person in the room just by how he listened to me. I fell for that version of him completely. We started dating in our second year and by the time we finished school I could not imagine my life without him in it.

That sounds sweet. When did things start to change?

It started very slowly. There is no single morning where I woke up and everything was different. It really crept up on me, I think even him. In our mid twenties we were in Lagos, both trying to build careers, and the social scene around us was what you would imagine. It started with regular parties and clubs we would frequent, then we kept running into the same people, certain crowds, and eventually we started noticing certain things that got passed around. He tried Molly first, at a party we both attended. I was there. It didn’t seem like a big thing then. A lot of people around us were doing it. I didn’t think too much of it. I later tried it myself but quickly stopped because the trip wasn鈥檛 was for me. 

When did you start thinking about it?

When it stopped being a party thing and became a regular thing. He was using every blessed day. Then LSD came in. He was curious about everything, that was part of who he was, and he framed it as exploration. Expanding the mind. I was not completely naive but I also loved him and he was still functional, still showing up, still the person I knew underneath it all. Or so I told myself.

What came after that?

I smoke weed recreationally so I once tried to wean him off all he was doing and transition to weed since he needed to use so badly and I felt it was a safer option but it backfired and he started doing Cocaine. That was when I felt the ground shift properly under my feet. 

Cocaine is expensive and it is hungry. It asks for more of you faster than the other things did. His personality started changing in ways I could see but struggled to name. He became more erratic. More defensive. Small things would set him off. The gentleness that I had fallen in love with started having gaps in it, moments where someone else was looking out of his eyes.

How did it start affecting you practically?

The main thing was money. That’s where it always shows up first. He started borrowing. Not large amounts at first, just here and there, I’ll sort you back by the weekend. He never sorted me back. I kept lending because I kept believing him. Over time the amounts got bigger and the timelines got vaguer and I stopped seeing any of it come back. I think in the first three years alone I had given or lent him close to two million naira that simply disappeared.

Did you talk to him about it?

Many times. He always had an explanation. He was between jobs, a deal had fallen through, he just needed to get through this one rough patch. He was a convincing person, that was one of his gifts and eventually one of his weapons. He could explain anything in a way that made you feel like the unreasonable one for questioning it.

Did it ever escalate beyond borrowing?

Yes. One payday I came home and my card was not where I left it. I turned the whole apartment upside down. Eventually I checked my account and the money was gone. Nearly everything I had been paid that month, withdrawn in chunks from different ATMs across two days. I confronted him and he denied it, then admitted it, then cried, then promised. He said he owed people, that things had gotten out of hand, that he was going to fix it. He came back three days later with flowers and an elaborate apology and I, God help me, I stayed.

Why did you stay?

Because I remembered who he was before. Because I genuinely believed the person I had fallen in love with was still in there and the drugs had just covered him up. Because leaving felt like giving up on someone who was sick. I had read enough to know addiction is an illness and I kept applying that framework to justify staying inside something that was hurting me. Also, I will be honest, I was ashamed. My family knew him. Our friends knew us together. Starting over at that point felt enormous.

Did it happen again, the stealing?

Several times. He got better at it. Sometimes it was cash from my bag, small amounts, something you might think you miscounted. Once he took jewellery, gold pieces my mother had given me and he sold them. It broke my heart. When I found out he said he had been desperate, that he hadn’t known what else to do, that he was going to replace everything. He never replaced anything. 

There was a period where I started hiding money in places around the house, in books, in pockets, in a small envelope taped behind a drawer. I was living with someone I loved and I was hiding my own money from him in my own home. I didn’t let myself sit with how absurd that was until much later. Even when the gambling started.

Gambling?  

It came with the cocaine era and got worse when heroin entered the picture. He was trying to multiply money quickly to afford the habit and he thought he could gamble his way there. He could not. I found out about the gambling debts when people started calling his phone at strange hours, and then calling mine when he wouldn’t answer. Men I had never met, asking me where he was, telling me he owed them. I paid some of those debts because I was terrified of what would happen if I didn’t. Looking back I was also funding the problem by doing that but at the time it felt like protecting him.

What happened next? 

He started getting physical when I started trying to protect my money more seriously. Once I began refusing to hand over cash or lend when he asked, he would get frustrated and it would tip into anger. The first time he grabbed me I told myself it was the drugs, that he would never do that sober, that it wasn’t really him. 

The second time I told myself the same thing. By the fourth or fifth time I had run out of that excuse but I was so deep in by then and so tired that leaving felt harder than staying. He always came back afterwards with something, a letter once, handwritten, pages long, telling me all the ways he knew he had failed me and all the ways he was going to change. I kept those letters for a long time. I don’t know why.

How was all of this affecting your work and your businesses?

My 9 to 5 I managed to hold onto because I needed it, it was the one thing I kept a wall around. But the hair business I had started, it was doing genuinely well, I had supply chains, regular clients, things were building. The money I should have been reinvesting kept going elsewhere. Into him, into his debts, into replacing what he stole. I couldn’t grow it past a certain point because every time I got to that point something happened and I was set back. I eventually let it go quiet. The salon I tried to open a few years after that, I had saved carefully, I had a location, I was ready. He found the account. I still don’t know exactly how. By the time I was due to sign the lease the money was significantly short. I had to walk away from that one too. Those two things, what they would have been by now, I don’t let myself calculate it too often.

Was there ever a moment where you almost left before you finally did?

Many moments. I packed a bag once and went to my sister’s place and stayed for two weeks. He called every day. My family, who only knew part of the story, encouraged me to think carefully before making a permanent decision. He showed up at my sister’s door one evening looking so diminished, so genuinely broken, that I went back. I went back and things were better for maybe three months. Then they weren’t.

What finally ended it?

My younger sister. She had come to visit me for a weekend and he was in the house. I had run out of some things and stepped out briefly to get them. I came back and she was shaken. She didn’t tell me immediately what had happened, she just said she wanted to leave. Later she told me he had cornered her in the kitchen and asked her to lend him money, and when she said she didn’t have any on her he got aggressive with her. He didn’t touch her but he frightened her. My little sister came to visit me and she left frightened.

Something in me went completely still when she told me. Not angry, not sad, just still. Like a decision had already been made somewhere inside me before I had consciously made it. I called him and told him to come and get his things. He came with another apology. I listened to the whole thing and then I told him to take his things and go. He did.

How was the aftermath?

Harder than I expected and easier than I feared, at the same time. The first few months I kept reaching for my phone to call him because ten years is ten years. Habits don’t care about good decisions. I also had to properly look at what I had lost, financially, professionally, in terms of time and choices and doors that had closed while I was busy managing someone else’s crisis. The number, when I finally sat with it, was staggering. Not just money. Years.

Do you have regrets?

About staying as long as I did, yes. About loving him, no. I think I loved a real person, the person he was at the beginning was not a performance, he was genuinely that man. The drugs just ate him. My regret is that I kept trying to save someone who at a certain point had stopped wanting to be saved, and I paid for that with things I cannot get back.

Do you still keep in touch?

Not at all. It took me a long time to leave him so when I finally did, I cut all access. I even moved a few months later because he kept showing up at my door. He kept calling so I had to change my sim and even requested for a transfer to a different branch because he kept showing up at my office as well. It is very difficult to unravel 10 years of entanglement. But eventually I did. I do not seek him out. I know nothing about how he is. I genuinely don鈥檛 even know if he鈥檚 alive. It鈥檚 okay. It鈥檚 better like this. He鈥檚 done enough. 

What do you want someone reading this to take away?

That love is not enough on its own. It is necessary but it is not sufficient. You can love someone completely and still be completely wrong to stay. And the longer you stay trying to rescue someone from themselves, the more of yourself gets lost in the rescue. Get out before you have to rebuild from nothing. I got out with something left. Not everyone does.

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Tari*, is 48, a mother of four, and the owner of two thriving frozen food stores that her husband does not know the full details of, even now. She married young, dropped out of university, and spent the better part of two decades watching one man specifically, make decisions about her life while she looked for gaps to breathe in. This is what she said.

Can you tell us about yourself?

I am Tari. I am 48 years old and I am from Bayelsa but I do not live there. I鈥檇 rather not say where. I am married and I have four daughters. I run two frozen food businesses or cold rooms and I have other things on the side. I am a busy woman. I like being busy. Keeping still was never good for me.

When did you get married?

I was twenty. He was introduced to my family through mutual friends. He was in his early thirties, established, well to do. He owned a shipping company and dabbled in real estate. By every measure the people around me were using, he was a good catch. I did not exactly choose him the way people choose things nowadays. It was more like, this is what happens next. You finish school, you find a good man, you marry. I was in my final year when we met and before that year was over I had dropped out and I was pregnant with my first child.

Why did you drop out? 

He asked me to. And the people around me at the time thought it made sense. Your husband is providing, why do you need the degree? I was twenty years old. I did not exactly think I could fight. So, I left.

Hmm. What were those early years of the marriage like?

He was very generous in the beginning. I come from a family that needed, and when I married him I was able to do things for my siblings, pay for their education, support them in ways I was proud of. That part I do not regret. 

The marriage gave me the ability to show up for the people I loved. But even then, he was a particular kind of man. Very much the head. Very much in charge. You moved around him. His church, his schedule, his decisions. Barely any room for you. 

Eventually, we had three more children. 

So you had four children together?

Yes, four girls. And he never let me forget that they were girls. He wanted a son and I never gave him one. He said it enough times in enough ways that it became background noise in the house. 

Eventually he had his son, with another woman, while we were still married. I will not go into how that period felt. I will just say it happened and I remained. But I did leave him though, twice. 

You left twice? Why?

Once in my mid twenties and again in my thirties. Both times I left the children behind. That is the thing my daughters hold onto and I understand why. He was not a kind man and I left them in that house. But I also could not take four children with nowhere to go and no degree to my name. What I would have done with them I do not know. I came back both times, the second time mostly because of them and partly because the world outside that house was harder than I expected without qualifications and without money that was mine.

I鈥檓 sorry. Did you ever decide to start doing something of your own?

Yes, it鈥檚 the main reason I left the first time. We were living in a large estate at the time and I noticed that nobody in the estate sold frozen foods. If you needed fish or chicken you had to leave entirely. I saw an opportunity. I spoke to my husband and he agreed. We got a big freezer, put it in the store room of the house, and I started. He even supplied some of the stock at a discount sometimes because of his shipping business. I printed fliers and my daughters walked the estate one Saturday morning and put them on every gate. I still think about that Saturday. How excited I was.

How did it go?

Better than I expected. Almost immediately, people came and kept coming because they genuinely needed what I was selling. Within a few months I had regulars, I was managing stock properly, I was making real money. For the first time since I dropped out I felt like I was doing something that was mine.

What happened?

My husband happened. Slowly, the way he did everything. It started with the children coming to take things from my stock because something had run out in the main house. He would tell them to take from my store and he would pay me back. He never paid me back. Not once. And when I brought it up he would get disgruntled and say things like, am I not the one who bought the freezer? As if the freezer was the business and not everything I had built around it. He kept doing it until there was nothing left to sustain the stock. The business collapsed.

What did you do after that?

I left the house. That was the first time. I came back about a year later and for a while I worked in his office as his manager because it was the only way I could have income without a degree. But I always knew I wanted my own thing again. Eventually I had another difficult conversation with him and made him promise that what happened the first time would never happen again. He agreed. I started over.

You’ll Love: 鈥�Vulnerability Was Something to be Ashamed Of鈥� 鈥� 10 Nigerian Women Share What It Took to Break the Strong Woman Role

Did you believe him?

I wanted to. I also did not have many other options at the time so I took the agreement and built anyway. And for a while it was good again. The business grew. I also started a charity around that time with other married women and mothers. We had regular meetings, we were doing real work in the community. That period, even inside an unhappy marriage, I felt like myself.

That鈥檚 really good. Isn鈥檛 it? 

It was at the time. Two, maybe three years later, the same pattern started again. Taking from the stock, promising to replace and not replacing. This time he was more deliberate about it, sometimes intentionally not buying provisions for the house so the children would have to come to my store. What was I supposed to do, let them go without? He used my children to drain my business and he knew exactly what he was doing. When he had finished that, he told me I had to shut down the charity as well. His church had apparently decided it was not good for me to be doing it. That it was stealing his light.

How did that feel?

Like the floor came out from under me. The business I could almost survive losing again. But the charity was something I had built with other women, something that was making a difference, and he took it because a pastor told him it made him look bad. I shut it down. I stayed. I had already left those children once and I was not doing it again and I could not take them with me. So I became a housewife and I stayed that way for four, five years.

What did those years look like?

My children watched me become someone they did not recognise. My friends watched it. My siblings watched it. I was there physically but something in me had gone very quiet. I stopped being someone who did things and became someone things were done to. I do not like to think about that period of my life too much. 

I鈥檓 sorry. Did anything change?

Yes. First, I left again. I could not look at him and I was useless around my children but after a few months of what felt like proper suffering and deeply missing my children, worst of all, having them call me again and again because he would hit them, I just had to go back. Then maybe 7 months later, my people did their thing. That is the only way to say it. My siblings, who I had spent years supporting, and the women from the charity group who had remained my friends even after I had to shut everything down had quietly, without telling me, found a store. On the other side of town, far from my husband’s house, far from his office, far from any of his properties. They put it in my name. They furnished it, stocked it, made it ready. And then they showed it to me on my birthday.

What was that moment like?

I dropped to my knees on the floor of that store and I cried for a long time. Hot tears. I could not speak for a while. These people had taken their own money and their own time and built me something because they had watched me disappear and they refused to let that be the end of my story. My siblings ran the store when I could not be there. For a long time we had to be very careful about who knew what because my husband could not find out. I told him I was taking a catering course or something. I do not even remember the exact lie. He did not ask too many questions because by then he had stopped being particularly interested in what I was doing.

How did the business do?

Where do I even begin? It did very well. The location was good and I knew how to do this by then. Within a year I had a sales rep and a manager. A year after that I opened a second store. I have had both for over five years now. I also started putting money into other things because I learned from losing everything twice that one stream is not enough. I do some small real estate now, buying and selling. I also do bulk supply on the side, connecting buyers to sellers for food items. Nothing dramatic but it adds up and it is mine.

And the charity?

It is still running. I just do not show my face. I work behind the scenes, provide support, help with logistics. My husband thinks it ended years ago. It did not.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

Did he ever find out about the store?

About a year ago he did. Someone saw me or something slipped. He was furious. How dare I not tell him, who did I think I was, all of that. And then he moved towards me like he was going to hit me, like he always did when he was very angry.

What did you do?

I told him directly, you can beat me black and blue but the moment you lay a hand on me I will leave this house with my children and you will never see any of us again. I do not need your money. You have nothing to hold me here. We can continue this arrangement we call a marriage or you can start a war. I am ready. My brothers are ready.

How did he respond?

He did nothing. He stood there and did nothing. And we have lived in a kind of cold cordial arrangement ever since. He does not bother me. I do not bother him. We share a house.

Why not just leave?

This is my life. These are my children, my home, the years I have put into this place. I will leave if I must. But right now I am okay. I have my business, I have my people, I have my money. The thing he always used to control me was that I had nothing of my own. I have things of my own now. That changes what staying means.

What do you want someone reading this to take away?

Build anyway. Even when they take it. Even when you have to start again and again. Find your people and let them find you. I would not have any of this without the ones who refused to watch me disappear. That is the whole story really. Not what he did but what they did for me.聽

*Names have been changed.

The  is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria. Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together. .

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

A few years ago, Naya*, 24, met someone online who felt like the friend she had always wanted. Same interests, same energy, easy to be around. By the time she realised something was very wrong, the friend had already worked her way into her family, her relationships, and her daily life. This is what she said.

Can you tell us about yourself?

I’m Naya*, I’m 24, based in Lagos. I’m a cosplayer, professional gamer, model, and voice actress. I do a lot of things. I’m someone who would rather avoid a problem than fight it, which is relevant to basically everything I’m about to say. So yes, I am an avoidant.聽

What made you want to talk about this now?

I haven’t really talked about it with people. I don’t usually do that. But it’s been sitting with me, and I think putting it somewhere makes it easier to process. Also, if someone else is in something similar and they read this, maybe it helps them clock it earlier than I did. Having a friend try to steal your life is really quite the experience. 

Interesting. How did this friendship start?

We met online a few years before we ever met in person. What drew me to her was that we had a lot of the same interests, cosplay, gaming, and she was unapologetically herself regardless of what anyone said about it. That was attractive to me. I respected it. When we eventually met in person, it felt natural. She fit in with my siblings easily, they thought she was cool, and she became part of the regular rotation pretty quickly.

What was the friendship like?

Like you had finally found that one friend everyone talks about wanting. Someone who gets your references, moves in the same spaces, genuinely feels like your person. As I said, she’s also a cosplayer and gamer, so there was a lot of overlap, and it felt like we were building something together in that world. She introduced me to things, opportunities and people. It was good for a while.

When did something start feeling off?

The first things I noticed were small. There was an entitlement that showed up early, like if I helped her with something once, she would just expect it going forward without asking. And she had this thing where she was clearly upset about something, but if you asked, she would say she wasn’t, then continue being upset. Passive-aggressive to the core. And she bragged. A lot. I noticed those things, but I just ignored them. They felt minor at the time. No reason to end a whole friendship.

When did they stop being minor?

Where do I start? Copying things, stealing my gift idea for my sister, and so much more. The main thing that had me so uncomfortable was when I tried to have some time to myself, she would flip. We had spent one morning doing what she wanted, and after, I said I needed some me time, and it became a whole situation. She didn’t shout or make a scene; it was more like withdrawing. She was suddenly so cold. There was no warmth at all. You could feel the tension without anyone saying a word. Some hours later, from nowhere, she started asking me to send pictures and videos of whatever I was doing. For some reason, I still do not understand; my alarm bells rang loud!

Hmm. Did she react the same way when you spent time with other people?

The same energy, yes. There was always an undertone of coldness. It was never too obvious or direct, but pointed enough that you felt it. Just enough to make you feel slightly guilty for existing outside of her.

That sounds like a lot to deal with. You mentioned she copied things as well. What did that look like?

It started with small things. Suddenly liking things I liked when I knew those things were not her at all. Saying the kinds of things I say. I didn’t clock it immediately, and even when I did, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. Then it became harder to ignore. She started buying the same outfits I did. Not similar, exact. Then the tattoos started.

The tattoos?

I have tattoos. She started getting the same ones. Which, fine, people get inspired. But hers were always done cheap and it showed. The lines weren’t clean. Some of them got infected. She kept going back for more anyway. My siblings started noticing and pointing it out before I said anything to them. This made me start going, ” Ha? So this really isn鈥檛 in my head?

Wow. How did your siblings react to her?

They were always polite. She thought they loved her. But after a while, they started quietly disappearing whenever she came over, avoiding certain spaces and keeping their distance. Part of it was her hygiene. She smells badly and seems completely unbothered by it or genuinely unaware. My siblings would try not to get too close and would avoid coming into my room when they had been in there. Nobody said it to her face. We just all knew.

What about the gift you mentioned?

I was buying something for my sister, a customised merch item for something she really loves. I had it in my cart, showed it to my friend because I was excited about it, and then something happened with the app: it went out of stock or dropped from my cart, so I had to wait. Some time later, she came to me and said she had seen the item I was going to get, bought it, and that it would now be her gift to my sister. Just like that. I had shown her my idea, and she took it and wrapped it in her name. And she said it like she was doing something kind.

What did you do?

I didn’t say much. That’s my default. I avoid but I took note of everything.

What else did she do that had you questioning the friendship?

She had a lot of people pursuing her, but she wasn’t honest about any of it. Which I cannot understand. She always presented herself as completely unbothered by everyone chasing her. Men, women, all of it. Constantly saying they were bugging her, she wanted nothing to do with them, God forbid. But these same people kept appearing in her stories. I’m watching her post little clips from places, and I’m recognising some of these houses. Her own sisters, whom I got close to separately, told me things they thought they didn’t know. That she had been seeing her step-cousin. That there were other men she was billing and fucking. She was lying about all of it while performing this whole narrative about being chased and unbothered. I think she had told everyone she was 25, too. She’s 21.

Why lie about being 25?

I genuinely don’t know. She’s 21. She told people she was 25. Maybe she thought it made her seem more credible, more established. I do not understand why.

Did the lying ever cross into something that directly affected you?

She made a move on my boyfriend.

Say more.

It was subtle enough that my boyfriend second-guessed himself at first and thought maybe he was imagining it. But it happened more than once, and eventually he told me. When I asked my friend about it, she did premium deflecting. Complete shock, how could I think that, you know how much I love you both.

How did that change things for you?

That was when I stopped being confused and started being deliberate. I had been slowly pulling back already, but after that, I stopped making myself available. Less response, longer gaps, vaguer answers. My version of ending something is to quietly disappear until there’s nothing left to disappear from.

Has she noticed?

She’s noticed. She keeps trying to pull me back in, reaching out, being warm, acting like everything is normal. She’s threatened to just show up at my house. More than once. I don’t know how serious that is, but the fact that she says it at all is its own kind of message. It doesn’t feel like a friendship trying to repair itself. It feels like a hunt.

Why do you think nobody around her saw this earlier or took it seriously?

Because she presents well at first. Sweet, fun, the kind of person you want to be around. And people have this idea of sisterhood and girlfriends as something soft and safe; nobody really talks about how hard it actually is to find a woman you can fully trust, or how much damage the wrong one can do. When it goes wrong, people minimise it. It’s just girl drama. It’s not that deep. But it can be very deep.

Looking back, what do you think she actually wanted from the friendship?

I’m still figuring that out. I think she wanted to be close to something she felt she wasn’t. Not necessarily to become me, she couldn’t, but to absorb enough of it that she felt more real, more interesting, more seen. The copying, the lying, the performance of a life she wasn’t living. It all points to someone who doesn’t fully know who she is and wants to borrow someone else’s shape while she figures it out. The problem is she borrowed without asking and didn’t know when to stop.

What would you say to someone who recognises their friendship in this story?

Trust the feeling. When something keeps sitting wrong, it’s sitting wrong for a reason.

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Nkem*, 24, grew up in a room and parlour in Bariga with eight children, a father who drank and fought and a mother who stayed and suffered. She thought she understood her family. Then, in January this year, she uncovered the truth about all 8 siblings’ parentage. Now she is in the best relationship of her life, with a man who keeps bringing up marriage, and she cannot bring herself to say yes. This is what she said.

Can you tell us about yourself?

My name is Nkem, I’m 24. I’m the lastborn of eight children. I grew up in Bariga and still live in Lagos. I work as a customer care rep and do some content creation on the side, as well as occasional hostess jobs when they come up. Whatever keeps things moving. 

My relationship with my parents is complicated, to say the least. I have a wonderful boyfriend who keeps talking about marriage, and I genuinely do not know what to do about that. My life on the outside looks fine. Normal even. But there is a lot underneath it that most people around me, including him, don’t know. That’s actually part of why I’m here.

Okay, let鈥檚 get into it. What was growing up like?

We grew up in a room and parlour in Bariga, eight of us plus my parents, in a space that had no business fitting that many people. When it rained, which in Lagos is not a small thing, there was nowhere to go; you just sat in the cold, sometimes, in the slight flood that would get into the house and waited it out. 

My earliest memories of my mum are of her being this light-skinned, full woman when I was very small. She was pretty, warm-looking and very full of life. At some point, that woman was just gone, and the person in her place was thinner, smaller, quieter, and sadder, like something had been slowly taken from her over the years. 

She would tell us it was our fault, that carrying us and living with my father had done that to her. And maybe that was true. But it was hard to hear as a child.

What was your father like?

On days he wasn’t working, he would leave the house and drink all day. Then come back to the compound, talking nonsense, damaging things, throwing our belongings outside, beating my mum, telling us to pack out. I used to pray just to stay sane. I used to dream about what a home felt like because I genuinely didn’t know what it felt like. I had never experienced one.

The whole neighbourhood knew our family. He would beat his wife and children and then go outside and misbehave in the streets and fall into gutters. That was just life. That was just Tuesday.

How did growing up like that affect you around other people?

I became a bully. Specifically to boys. My logic was simple: if I didn’t beat him first, something in my body assumed he would beat me. So I hit first, every time, unapologetically. It took me years to understand where that came from.

You mentioned eight children in that house. Walk me through who everyone was.

This is where it gets complicated, and I’m only now able to explain it properly because I didn’t truly understand it until January this year.

Growing up, I was told those seven other children were my siblings. I assumed some were cousins, and that was only because the way we related didn’t always feel like family. The older five had a different energy towards the younger three of us; there was a bullying that felt like more than just sibling nonsense, it felt like something else underneath it. Like resentment. Only one of the older five was genuinely kind to me. I loved her most.

I also noticed things. One of the girls was extremely fair. I am very dark, and at some point, I looked at my mum, who used to be light-skinned, and I thought, okay, maybe that explains it. I told myself we just came out in different colours. I genuinely believed we all had the same parents.

We didn’t.

So what is the actual family situation?

My mother had children with three different men.

Her first child, I’ll call her A, came from the first man she was with. She left that relationship because of domestic violence, sent A back to the village to live with that man, and moved to Lagos.

In Lagos, she met another man and had three children with him. When the last of those three was about two years old, my mother left. Just woke up one day, took her things, and left all three of them with their father. 

Then she met my dad. She told him she had four children, and he told her he had one child from a previous relationship that he still supported. They moved in together, already carrying five children between them who were not living with them. Then they had my brother, their first child together. When my brother was about two, my mother brought the youngest child from her second relationship to live with them. Then she had my immediate senior sister. Then she had me.

So in that room and parlour in Bariga were: A, who came back at some point, the child my mother brought from her second relationship, my dad’s child from his previous relationship, my brother, my sister, me, and the remaining children from the second relationship who came to join at different points. Eight children. Three different fathers. One very small space. And nobody sat any of us down to explain any of it.

That must have been tough. When did you find out?

It was. I found out in January this year. And even now, nobody has given me a straight explanation. My mother refuses to properly account for any of it. The children she had for other men look at us like we are enemies. I have been asking questions, only to get silence and deflection. It is one of the most disorienting things I have ever experienced, finding out that the life you understood was not the life that actually existed.

How did your mother explain it when you pushed?

She cried. That’s her answer to everything. I’ll call her crying on the phone, trying to talk to her about how we are struggling. Sometimes, we would go two weeks without drinking anything but water before we could see money for noodles, and instead of answers, she would cry and say that if she had gone to school, she would have given us a better life. That is her response. Emotional blackmail, so she doesn’t have to explain herself. Her own child asks her how we became what we are, and she cannot give a reason.

Where is your father in all of this now?

The minute I finished secondary school, he quit his job, said he wanted to relocate to the village, and go and eat the fruit of his labour. His plan was that one of us, the one he thought had sense, would go to university and train the rest of the siblings. That one got pregnant before 300 level, wanted to marry, my mother agreed, and that was the plan finished. My brother moved to another state, couldn’t finish university, and started doing whatever jobs he could find to survive. I moved in with my immediate senior sister.

My father is now in the village in a halfway-built house. He used all the money that was supposed to complete it to drink. He is now pressuring us to send money to finish building it so he can move in properly with his new wife.

His new wife?

Yes. After everything, after all of it, he went and married another woman. My mum, who is almost 60, is crying like a child over this man who is now with someone else but still beats her when he sees her, still calls to curse himself and God and whoever else in the middle of the night. And he still expects us to send money. He wants that house completed so he can move his new family in.

My brother and my sister are the ones keeping both our parents alive right now. A man with nothing to his name, being fed by the children he never properly took care of.

I became an aunt twice before I turned 25.

You’ll Also Love: 鈥淚 Wanted a Breakup, But My Boyfriend Said No鈥� 鈥� 10 Nigerian Women Share Why They Cheated

How are you surviving through all of this?

I just am. Some days are better than others. I try to control what I can control and let go of what I can’t. I’ve had to accept that no one is coming to explain anything to me or take responsibility for any of it. What I know now is what I’ll have to build from.

I am also living with someone, so my most basic needs are taken care of.

Ooh? Tell us about them. 

Yes. Let’s call him Kolade*. We have been together about two years. He is Yoruba and very family-oriented. He is serious about the people he loves and shows it generously. He has a good relationship with his family, and when we are around them, I fall in line, greet properly, sit properly, and behave the way a woman is expected to behave in that setting. He doesn’t see anything wrong with that; it’s just how things are done as far as he’s concerned, and honestly, I have bigger things to worry about than that.

He is funny, though it takes some time to understand him. He will say something completely flat, and it takes you a second to realise he just made a joke. He pays attention, remembers things I mentioned once in passing, checks on me in ways I didn’t know I wanted or needed. He is also financially comfortable, has built something real for himself, and carries that without making it a whole personality.

He is a good man. That is the simplest way to say it.

Sounds like someone worth holding onto.

He is. That’s exactly the problem.

What do you mean?

He brought up marriage at our one-year mark. I laughed and changed the subject. He brought it up again a few months later, more casually, almost like a joke, but I know him well enough to know it wasn’t fully a joke. He’s been planting the conversation in little ways ever since. Recently, it’s started to feel less like a suggestion and more like something he’s actually moving towards. And I don’t know what to do with that.

Why not? You just described him as everything.

Because he doesn’t know. He knows surface things about my family, that it’s complicated, that I don’t talk about them much. He doesn’t know the actual shape of it. He doesn’t know about my father. He doesn’t know about my mother and her three men and the children she left behind and the children she brought together and the lie that all of us lived in. He doesn’t know that my parents are currently both being kept alive by my brother and sister, who are struggling themselves. He doesn’t know that the minute he becomes a more permanent fixture in my life, my family will find a way to make him a resource.

That last part especially. I have seen what my family does. I know how these things go. A comfortable man marrying their daughter or their sister is not just a wedding to them. It becomes access. It becomes requests. It becomes pressure. And Kolade has worked too hard for his life for me to be the door through which all of that walks in. 

Have you told him any of this?

I don’t know where to start. That’s the honest answer. Every time I think about sitting him down, I imagine his face while I explain the family tree alone, and I just close it. How do I begin? Do I start with my mother’s first man? Do I start with January, and what do I find out? Do I start with the fact that my father just married another woman while my mother cries herself to sleep? There is no clean entry point into this story.

What are you most afraid of?

Two things that contradict each other. I’m afraid he’ll stay, and my family will slowly drain the good things we have. And I’m afraid that once he knows everything, once he sees the full picture, he’ll decide it’s too much. That I’m too much. That what comes with me is more than he signed up for.

I find homes in the people I love. I always have, because I never had one growing up. Kolade is the most home I have ever felt. The thought of losing that because of people who couldn’t even be honest with me about who we were to each other, it makes me so angry that I don’t know what to do with it.

It鈥檚 why I lied to him and his family. I told them my parents are dead and that I have only three siblings. I needed the questions to stop, and that was the easiest way to stop them.

You told his family that your parents are dead? Why?

I did. Because the alternative was trying to explain something I didn’t even fully understand myself. And because once his family knows you come from something messy, they look at you differently. I have seen it happen. I didn’t want that.

And Kolade himself? You lied to him to?

Not in so many words, but he knows what I told his parents, and I believe he鈥檚 taken that as fact.

Don鈥檛 you think this lie will drive you further apart? What happens if he finds out? 

He can never. I don鈥檛 think the relationship will survive it, but I am not too worried. I live in a completely different world from my family now. I do not even visit them. I will speak to my brother and sister. The two directly above me, my full-blood siblings. We will make this lie work.

Kolade knows I don’t talk about my family. He has not pushed too hard. But marriage means his family becomes my family officially, and the lie has to hold forever, or it doesn’t hold at all. One visit, one phone call, one moment where something doesn’t add up, and the whole thing falls apart.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

Hmm. Do you want to marry him?

Yes. I think about it, and I want it. That’s what makes all of this so hard. It’s not that I don’t want the life he’s pointing at. It’s that I don’t know how to bring my life into it without breaking something.

So what are your next steps?

I wish I knew. For now, I need to solidify the lie with my immediate siblings and hold Kolade off a little longer. Maybe 

What would you tell someone else in your position?

You can only control what is yours. The dysfunction is not your fault, and it is not your identity, even when it feels like it is. And cutting off people who do nothing but curse you and take from you is not a betrayal of family. Sometimes it is the only way to actually build one.

What do you want for yourself, not for anyone else, just for you?

Peace. Just peace. 

What She Said: I Want My 18-Year-Old Daughter to Marry a Man I Used to Sleep With

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Adaora* is in her early 40s, married, and living abroad. She’s Igbo on her mum’s side and grew up in Enugu. She reached out to us with a story she is not ashamed of. In fact, she is proud of it. She is arranging a marriage between her 18-year-old daughter and a man she herself had a situationship with for five years, a man who is now in his early 60s. She believes she is doing the best thing any mother could do.

Can you tell us about yourself?

I’m in my early 40s. I grew up in Enugu. I’ll always say that first. I’m married, live abroad now, and have an 18-year-old daughter. I’ve had a full life, and I’ve learned a lot from it. That’s the short version.

What made you decide to tell this story? 

I have found my daughter a good husband. Not these small boys, her mates are chasing up and down. A real man who has already built his life and can take care of her properly without her having to worry about anything. And people are judging me for it. I just want to see what your community might think. Either way, I will do what is best for my own child. 

Okay. Tell us more. How did you find this husband?

I already knew him. We were close, many years ago. He’s someone I have a lot of history with, and I know his character very well. That’s actually why I thought of him. I know who he is. I know what he’s capable of. I know he will treat her well.

When you say close, what do you mean?

We had a thing for a few years, when I was in my early twenties. Nothing too serious because he was never the type to be serious with one person, and I knew that going in. He was a serial non-monogamist; I was never under any illusions about what it was. But we had a genuine connection, and he cared about me in his way. He’s not a bad man. He’s just not a one-woman man. Which is actually fine for what I have in mind because my daughter is young and full of life, and she will keep him interested.

How old is he?

He was in his early 40s when we were together. Now, he’s in his early sixties. 61 I believe. But age is just a number. He doesn’t look it, he doesn’t act it. He works out and is very fit. He’s well-travelled, well-kept, and very sharp. These are the things that matter.

And your daughter is 18.

She is 18, yes. She is an adult. Nobody can tell me otherwise. Under the law, she is a grown woman, and she can make her own decisions. I am just helping her make the right one before she wastes her best years on the wrong person.

Does she know about any of this?

Not yet. I will tell her in due time. I’ve already told her I’m looking for a suitable husband for her, so she knows that much. She trusts me. I know my daughter.

How did this idea come to you?

He reached out years ago, actually. My daughter was maybe 14, and I had posted a photo of her, and he sent me a message saying she was very beautiful and that he would marry her. I knew he was joking at the time, but it planted something in my head. I started thinking, actually, why not? Who better? I know this man. I know he likes them young. My daughter is young. I know he travels, he’s generous, and he has money that will never finish. What exactly is the problem? And as soon as she has a baby for him, she鈥檚 protected, loved and looked after, even when she will no longer be as young as he鈥檇 like, she will be financially provided for. I have seen him do it with others. 

Interesting. He likes them young. Doesn’t that concern you at all?

Why would it concern me? My daughter is not a child. She is 18. And yes, he prefers younger women, so what? Many men do. At least he is honest about who he is. I would rather give my daughter to a man I know than watch her end up with some 28-year-old who is broke and still finding himself. What will he give her? Love? Love does not pay school fees. Love does not fly you, business class. Love does not build you a house.

But you had a relationship with him yourself. Does that not make this strange?

That was in the past. It’s been over twenty years. I am married to someone else, and I have built my life. That chapter is closed. What I had with him has nothing to do with what I am arranging now. If anything, it makes me more qualified to make this decision because I know him better than any stranger would.

If he鈥檚 so good, why did you end things with him?

I was young. I didn鈥檛 know any better. I wanted a man that will want only me, which is why I never fully committed to him. Also, my husband came into my life. We met at a party. He was handsome and rich, and he did his best to make it clear he was serious. He was American and decided he wanted me to come back with him and get married. The offer of a green card meant more to me than anything else. I already had 2 other citizenships. Nigerian, and where my father was from, but none of these passports could compare to the American one. The safety of his money was a huge plus as well.

Hmm. When you approached him about your daughter, what did he say?

He reminded me of our history. I told him that was the past and it has no bearing on this conversation. I told him my daughter is a good girl. She has never been with anyone; she is a virgin, she is well-raised and well-mannered. She is exactly the kind of woman a man like him should settle down with. I told him he is not getting younger, and she is the best thing that could happen to him at this stage of his life. A young, beautiful, fresh woman who will give him energy and keep him young.

And he was receptive?

He is thinking about it. Which means yes.

What do you say to people who would hear this and say you are selling your daughter?

Nobody is being sold anywhere. This is me using my connections and experience to secure my daughter’s future. Every mother does this; they just do it quietly or badly. I am doing it well. I know this man. I know what he can offer. My daughter will never have to stress about money a day in her life. She will travel. She will be comfortable. She will be protected. What mother doesn’t want that?

But she doesn’t get a say.

She will get a say. When I present this to her, I will explain it properly. I will show her what this life looks like. My daughter is a smart girl. She will understand.

And if she says no?

She won’t say no once she understands the full picture. I know my daughter.

What if she falls in love with someone her own age?

With what? What will he give her? These boys her age are on Instagram looking fine, and that is all. They have nothing. I did not raise my daughter to suffer with a man who is still trying to figure out his life at 30. I went through my own journey. I made my own choices. I ended up okay, but it wasn’t easy. I don’t want it easy for my daughter. I want to be secure. There is a difference.

But you married well, according to your standards. Isn鈥檛 your daughter taken care of by you and your husband?

Yes, of course she is. But will I care for her for the rest of her life? I will get old. I will die. So will my husband. Yes, she has a trust fund, and she鈥檚 in our will, and she may never want for much, but she still needs her own man to love and care for her. That is the way it is. I turned out okay. She will too. 

Okay. You鈥檙e saying you ended up okay. You married someone else and moved abroad. Why couldn’t your daughter have that same path on her own terms?

I found my husband because I was already exposed, I already knew how to move, and I already understood men. My daughter doesn’t have that yet. She’s too naive. I am giving her a shortcut. I am giving her what took me years to find, in one arrangement. That is not harm. That is love.

Is there anything that would make you reconsider?

No. I have thought about this carefully. I am her mother. Nobody can tell me what is right for my own child. Nobody knows her the way I do. Nobody loves her the way I do. And nobody, I mean nobody, has the right to come and tell me what I should or shouldn’t do for my own daughter.

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Tumilola* (40) is a Lagos-born accounting officer and the firstborn of six. When her father’s alcoholism dismantled everything her childhood was built on, she became the person her family leaned on. She has been that person ever since. This is what she said.

Can you tell us about yourself?

My name is Tumilola, I’m 40. I鈥檓 from Osun state. I’ve been in Lagos since I was born, so Lagos is really all I know. I’m an accounting officer. These days I’m a pretty boring person, it’s just house to work and work to house. I attend church occasionally. That’s it, really.

I’m not passionate about many things anymore, if I’m being honest. Maybe at a point in my life I had interests, but right now I’m just dedicated to my work. I’m not a fun person. Sorry.

What made you decide to tell this story?

Nothing dramatic, honestly. I guess this is just a story I’m comfortable telling right now. It felt like time.

How would you describe the last few years of your life?

Chaotic. Kind of.

Take me back. What was your childhood like?

It was peaceful. I mean, I had a lot of siblings, and I was the first child, so there was the usual chaos that comes with that, but it was amazing all the same. My childhood was marked by playing games with my siblings and friends until I was tired. My dad was successful and very present in our lives. If I asked him for anything, I got it. None of us lacked. I never had to ask twice.

Then something started shifting. There wasn’t exactly one clear moment where everything changed. I just remember that one morning I was at our apartment, the one that accommodated everyone, and then the next morning we were at my grandfather’s house with our entire household. The house we usually only went to during holidays. It took me a while to understand what had happened. My mum was doing her best to shield us from the details, but eventually, in a one-bedroom space, nothing stays hidden for long.

What did you start to notice?

Alcohol bottles around the house. His words slurring. He barely made sense when he spoke. I didn’t really know what alcohol smelled like then, but I knew his breath always smelled horrible, and I didn’t like being close to him anymore. The father who used to spend evenings joking around with us was just gone, even when he was physically there. Somehow, all the money he seemed to have disappeared as well. 

Did the money go before you understood what was actually happening?

Yes, the money I noticed first. Whenever we asked my mum for anything, she would shout at us, which was so unusual. Then my siblings and I started sharing a school allowance for the first time. This had never happened before. Then I started putting everything together: the bottles, the breath,  how he was barely present, the way he used to be. I had memories of spending evenings joking around with my dad, and then suddenly none of that. He was just gone, even when he was physically there.

And my mum changed too. She went from being this sweet, easygoing woman to someone who snapped at everything. As children, we didn’t understand why. We just knew she wasn’t who she used to be.

What did moving into your grandfather’s place actually feel like?

It was very suffocating. I went from sharing a room with just my two sisters to sharing a living room floor with all my siblings because the only bedroom went to my parents. Six of us in a space that wasn’t even technically ours, it was my grandfather’s living room. I kept telling myself we were just on a long holiday. A year passed, and we were still there, and I had to accept that this was just our life now.

What did accepting it look like?

Gritting my teeth through the most uncomfortable parts of being poor, when we never were. It was a very big adjustment. Years later, after I turned 18, I realised I had to do something about it. My mum had to step up twice over because my dad had stopped being a provider entirely. Any money that came into his hands went to alcohol. He was always at the beer parlour or buying those sachet alcohols. So she was out from morning to night trying to keep us alive, and I was the oldest, so.

What did that look like day to day?

Wake up. Go to whatever work I’d managed to find. Spend the whole day there. Come home. Drop the money into my mum’s hands. Go to sleep. Then do it again.

And while you were doing that, what was happening to your siblings?

Everyone was affected differently by my father鈥檚 alcoholism and my parents’ neglect. My first sister gravitated to any man who promised to provide for her because there was no love or stability at home. Her elder sister, me, was busy helping my mum hold things together; my father couldn’t be relied on, and here was a man saying all the right things. Of course, she followed him even with glaring red flags. She was a mother before she turned 20.

My other sister started moving with friends I didn’t approve of, people who were too close to drugs and alcohol. I couldn’t really say anything. She was finding her own escape.

One of my brothers became close with street boys. Another one tried to hide the fact that he was drinking, but you can’t hide alcohol breath from people who spent their whole childhood smelling the same thing from their father. And the last one became a baby daddy with zero money to his name.

I became an aunt twice before I turned 25.

You’ll Also Love: Earning Money Gave My Mother the Confidence to Hit Her Husband Back

I鈥檓 sorry. When you found out about your brother drinking, what did that feel like?

It felt like failure. I knew it wasn’t my job to raise my siblings. I knew that. But I still felt like I had failed.

Was there any pressure on your brothers to help carry any of this, the way there was on you?

None. My immediate younger sibling is a boy, and there was zero pressure on him to help the family or show up in any particular way. He was allowed to be reckless. I was not. I had to help my mum. I resent my parents and that brother a lot for that. A lot.

You were holding everything together, and no one was holding you. Who showed up for you during any of this?

No one, really. No one ever shows up for the firstborn daughter. I didn’t have a support system. That’s just how it was. It shaped me into someone who has a very hard time asking for help. I just don’t know how to do it anymore.

What did all of this cost you personally?

My love life. I’m a lover girl at heart, genuinely. But with the life I was living, I couldn’t afford to actually be with anyone. How do you explain to someone that your entire life revolves around your family because none of them are making enough effort to help themselves? It’s not something most people want to sit with.

Did you ever come close to choosing differently?

My second boyfriend, the last person I was ever with, asked if we could relocate to another state together. I said no. I needed to stay close to my family. He was the last relationship I had.

How do you feel about that now?

I just feel resentment. A lot of it. There were times I thought about killing myself, I can’t lie. It got that heavy sometimes.

What kept you going?

The song that comes to mind right now is, 鈥淚f you ask me, na who I go ask?鈥� I just kept going. I don’t have a straight answer for that.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

What is your relationship with your father like today?

He’s basically useless at this point. The father I knew as a child stopped existing a long time ago. What’s there now is just this person, everyone in the neighbourhood knows as the drunk. Any money that comes to him goes to alcohol. We’ve all had to come to terms with that.

Did you ever feel like you were parenting your parents?

My mum, no. I didn’t feel like I was parenting her. But my dad, yes. Being an alcoholic turned him into a child. Everyone had to clean up his vomit, watch over him, and manage him. So yes. I was parenting my father.

What is your relationship with him like today?

I mean, he’s basically useless at this point. The father I knew as a child stopped existing a long time ago. What’s there now is just this person, everyone in the neighbourhood knows as the alcoholic. We’ve all had to come to terms with that.

Do you think your family ever truly recovered?

No. How do you recover from decades of this? I’m honestly surprised I still talk to my siblings at all. None of us turned out particularly okay. That’s just the truth of it.

What do people misunderstand about children who grow up in homes like yours?

They think we had a choice in who we became. That we could have just decided to be fine. It is not as simple as that. 

How did it shape you?

It made me someone who has a very hard time asking for help. That’s the main thing. I just don’t know how to do it. I’ve been doing everything alone for so long that needing someone feels foreign.

What does healing look like for you right now?

A coworker mentioned that therapy helped him through a dark period, and I started going. I’ve also opened a dating app. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I’m trying. That’s new for me, trying.

If you could sit with the version of yourself in that one-bedroom apartment at your grandfather’s house, what would you say to her?

I’m so sorry. You do not deserve the hand you were dealt. 

You’ll Love: Why Are Nigerian Mothers So Obsessed With Marriage?

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Dan* is a 30-year-old artist whose quiet, routine church connection took an unexpected turn. What started as a casual reconnection spiralled into an uncomfortable situation they鈥檙e still navigating, one that now follows them into spaces that are meant to feel safe, from church to parties. They share what it鈥檚 like to be desired by someone they don鈥檛 want, and why setting boundaries hasn鈥檛 been as simple as just saying no.

Tell us about yourself

I’m 30, and an artist. I’d say I’m pretty calm, very level-headed. I like to think I come across as put together even when I’m figuring things out in real time. I’m from Anambra, and I grew up in a pretty typical Nigerian family: mum, dad, and a sister. I’m masculine-presenting, so people make their assumptions about me. I just move carefully depending on where I am.

What does a typical week look like for you?

It鈥檚 pretty structured. I work, I create, I try not to let those two things eat each other alive. Weekends are usually for resting, sometimes going out, and Sundays are for church. Church has been a consistent part of my life for a while. It鈥檚 mostly just familiar faces and the same rhythm every week. You know what you’re walking into.

Are you someone who builds friendships easily in spaces like that?

Not really. I’m friendly, but I’m not quick to form deep connections. I’ll talk, gist, laugh, but it doesn’t always go beyond that. Most of my relationships from places like church stay on the surface unless there’s a real reason for them to deepen.

Have you had a reason to deepen any relationships?

Not really, but I did develop a friendship with someone.

Tell us more?

Well, we met in church, obviously. Let鈥檚 call her Angelica*. The bishop introduced us, but I don’t even fully remember why. She’s a little older, mid-thirties, and runs a beauty salon. She鈥檚 confident, playful, and easy to talk to. We just became people who saw each other every Sunday, said hi, gisted small and went our separate ways. That went on for like three or four years. At some point, we exchanged numbers, but we barely used them. Everything was very surface-level. Nothing suggested what eventually happened.

What changed?

We hadn’t seen each other in a while, maybe almost a year, she had travelled. So one Sunday, when I got to church and saw her, it was unexpected. We started talking again after service, just catching up. Then we moved to text that same day and were going back and forth properly for the first time. She mentioned there was something personal she wanted to discuss and said she’d rather do it in person. I said I could come by during the week. We settled on Thursday. That was the first time we’d ever met outside of church.

What was the plan for that Thursday?

Just to talk. That was genuinely all I thought it was. She had something on her mind she wanted to share. I was available, and she didn鈥檛 live far from me. I wasn’t reading anything into it.

I got there, and we were just chilling, talking. I even had a work meeting that I had to step away for, briefly. At some point during the visit, Angelica disappeared into her room and came back out in a tank top and pyjama bottoms, just getting comfortable in her own space, which was fine. After that finished we settled into the real conversation, and she opened up about something personal that had pulled her away from her usual crowd for close to a year. It was heavy, and I was glad she felt comfortable enough to share it. That part felt real and good.

Then the conversation shifted.

How did it shift?

She asked about my relationship. The last time we’d spoken, I’d mentioned I was with someone. I told her that it was over. She laughed and said she genuinely thought I was going to marry that person based on how I’d talked about them. Then she started asking if I was seeing anyone, talking to anyone, what I liked. How I knew I wasn’t straight. She mentioned she was bi herself. The energy started changing, and I could feel it.

She kept getting physically closer. Playing with the strings on my joggers. Holding eye contact a beat too long. Smiling at me. I went into oblivious mode, which is what I do when I’m not interested and don’t want to be mean about it. I started redirecting the conversation everywhere else. Music. Random topics. Anything.

Did she get the hint?

No. She put on slow RnB. Very soft and intentional. And she kept coming closer. At some point, I just had to start thinking about leaving because things became very clear. Thankfully, she had plans nearby too, so it wasn’t awkward to call it. She said she was going to shower quickly so we could leave together.

Before she went in, she loudly announced it, like making sure I knew.

She said it like a statement, not just information. I was sitting directly across from the bathroom door, full view in, and when she started the shower, I got up and moved seats. I wasn’t going to sit there. After a few minutes, she came back out, completely shirtless, bare chest, holding a sundress up to herself, asking what I thought of it. I glanced at the dress. Said it was nice. Then looked away. She went back in. Didn’t close the door behind her either.

Did she say anything about it before you left?

Just before we left, she asked me directly. Did I not want to look at her? Did I not find her attractive? I told her I was trying to be respectful, that I’d answered her question about the dress and figured that was it. I kept it very neutral.

There was also a lot of wine throughout all of this. I love wine, I won’t say no to wine, but I was clocking that it kept appearing. I don’t think she meant anything sinister by it, but there was an intention there I couldn’t fully name.

In the car on the way out, she held my hand. I felt stuck because she was my ride. I didn’t want a whole scene, so I just let it happen. When I got out, she said she didn’t want me to leave. That she’d miss me.

Had you said anything at any point that could have given her the impression that you were interested?

I mentioned I was in an open situation with someone. That there was a person I was getting to know, and it was still building. That should have been enough to make it clear that I was unavailable, but she said she couldn’t do open relationships; she needed to be someone’s only focus. I said that’s fair, it’s not for everyone. I thought that was me being clear. That this is where I am, and it’s not changing. She heard “open” and decided that meant available. It didn’t.

Tell me about the person you were talking about.

She’s a 28-year-old digital strategist. We’d known each other for months before anything happened, crossed paths through work and some projects, never directly, until one collaboration brought us closer. We spent an extended weekend together, and something just settled between us. By the time the church situation started escalating, we’d been building something for a few months, and it was getting real.

She has one other partner. So, yeah, it’s open, but it’s not casual. There’s actual weight to what we’re building, and I take that seriously.

You’ll Also Love: My Aunt Tried to Drive My Sister Mad. It Backfired on Her Own Daughter

Did you let Angelica know things were getting serious with her?

Yes. She just kept treating open like a door she could walk through whenever she wanted. Every time we crossed paths, she’d ask how things were going, and when I said well, when I made it clear this was becoming something meaningful, she’d just redirect. Change the subject. Act like she hadn’t heard me. Like the information kept failing to land.

And you kept seeing her in church.

Every Sunday. That’s what makes it complicated. I can’t avoid the space. Church is part of my routine, and I’m not letting someone else’s behaviour disrupt that. But I cannot lie that I am tired of feeling like I have to avoid her at church.

She’d spot me across the room and make her way over. Always warm, always like nothing was happening. I’d be cordial. I’m not going to cause a scene in church. But I’d be counting down to the end of service.

Did it ever spill outside the church?

There’s a crowd we both move through. Lagos is big, but certain circles are small, especially queer-adjacent ones. A few months after the bathroom incident, we ended up at the same party. I was there with the person I’m seeing. We were in our own world, genuinely having a good time, and then I spotted her across the room.

By the time she got to where we were standing, she was already a few drinks in. She came straight to me, barely acknowledged anyone else, started touching my arm, leaning in close to talk in my ear, even though the music wasn’t that loud. My partner was right there. Not making a scene, but I could feel her watching.

I stepped slightly to the side, and she followed. I said it was good to see her and tried to fold her into the group conversation. She wasn’t interested in the group. She pulled me aside at some point and said she missed me, that she thought about me, that she didn’t understand why I kept the distance. I told her plainly that I was there with someone, that things between us were serious, and that I needed her to respect that. She looked at me for a long moment and said she just didn’t see how an open relationship could really count as serious.

I didn’t have anything left to say to that. I went back to my partner.

How did your partner handle it?

We talked about it after. They were calm; they’re not the type to make it bigger than it needs to be. But they said something that stayed with me. They said it was clear this woman didn’t see me as someone in a relationship; she saw me as someone in a situation that hadn’t been resolved yet. And they were right. That’s exactly how she was treating it.

Did things settle after that?

For a few weeks, yes. She kept a bit of distance at church, which I appreciated even if I didn’t say anything. I thought maybe the party was a turning point. That she’d finally read the room and decided to leave it alone.

Then one Sunday, she waited for me after service. She was standing near the exit, and when I came out, she fell into step beside me, very deliberately, and said she needed to talk to me properly. I asked her what about. She said she felt like we’d never had a real conversation about what was happening between us, and she deserved that much at least.

I remember standing there thinking, what is happening between us? Because from where I’m standing, nothing is happening. Nothing has ever happened.

What did you say?

I was very direct. I told her there was nothing to talk about. That I’d been clear about my situation, that I was with someone, that nothing was going to change, and that I needed her to accept that. She got quiet. Then she said something about how she could tell I had feelings I wasn’t acting on, that I was holding back because of my relationship, and that if I was honest with myself, I’d admit it.

That was the moment I stopped being polite about it. I told her she was wrong. That I wasn’t holding back, that there was nothing to hold back, and that what she was doing was making me uncomfortable in a space I come to every week. I said it as calmly as I could, but I said it clearly.

How did she respond?

She looked hurt. She said okay. Just that. Okay. And walked away.

The following Sunday, she didn’t come to speak to me. The one after that, either. I thought it was done. I was relieved in a way I didn’t realise I needed to be until the relief actually came.

Then one Sunday, she was back. Same warmth, same hi, same energy as we’d just pressed reset, and none of it had happened. And I just stood there thinking, so this is just how it’s going to be.

Did things get better?

No.

What happened?

A mutual friend had people over at her place a few weeks later. It was a casual thing. Just a small group, where you show up, eat, drink, and just exist with people you like. I didn’t know Angelica was going to be there. That part I genuinely didn’t know.

It started fine. We were in the same space, I acknowledged her, she acknowledged me, and we stayed on opposite ends of the room. I thought, okay, we can do this, we’re adults.

At some point in the afternoon, I went to lie down in one of the back rooms because I had a headache coming on. The host knew I just needed twenty minutes. I was on my phone, lights low, door not fully closed because it’s someone’s house, and I wasn’t trying to be rude about it.

I heard the door and assumed it was the host checking on me.

It wasn’t.

Angelica came in, closed the door behind her, and sat on the edge of the bed. She started talking, low voice, very calm, asking how I was doing, how things were going with my partner. I said fine and kept it short. Then she started going in on the relationship. Said she’d been watching us at the party, and my partner seemed possessive for someone in an open relationship. Said it didn’t look casual, that it looked like I was being controlled, that I deserved to be with someone who wasn’t going to put pressure on me.

I sat up and told her that was the whole point. That it wasn’t casual. That I’d been saying that from the beginning.

She said she knew that that was exactly why she was worried about me.

And then, before I could respond, she was on top of me. I don’t even fully know how it happened that fast. One moment she was sitting beside me, and the next she had her thighs either side of me and her hands on my face, and she was kissing me. I was so caught off guard, I froze for a second, which I hate admitting, and then I grabbed her arms and pushed her back and said what are you doing. She didn’t move immediately. She just looked at me.

I had to tell her to get off me. Twice.

She eventually got up and left the room without saying anything. I sat there for a few minutes just trying to process what had just happened.

Did anyone find out?

I told my partner that same evening. I wasn’t going to sit on it. They were quiet for a long time after I finished talking. Not angry at me, but I could feel something shift. They said they believed me and that it wasn’t my fault, and I know they meant it, but something about the whole thing put a strain on us that we’re still working through. Not because of any suspicion on their end, but because it brought the whole situation to a head that was hard to just absorb and move on from.

And Angelica?

I stopped going to that church.

I didn’t make a big announcement about it. I just stopped showing up. I found somewhere else to go on Sundays, and I haven’t been back. I’m not going to keep walking into a space every week where someone has made me feel like that. I tried to handle it with patience and grace for months, and it still ended with me having to physically push someone off me in a room I thought I was resting in.

Some spaces stop being safe. When that happens, you just have to find another one.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

How are you feeling about all of it now?

Tired mostly. I am so tired of being wanted by someone I don’t want, especially when they won’t accept that the answer is no. I haven’t been rude. I haven’t been cold. I’ve been clear in ways I thought were enough. And she keeps showing up, in church, at parties, in the parts of my life I share with other people. There’s nowhere to fully exhale.

What’s the hardest part?

That I can’t be angry in the way I want to be. Because if I make it a whole thing, everyone could find out. In church, in that circle, in spaces where I already have to move carefully because of who I am. I’m already doing enough calculations just existing in certain rooms. Adding this on top of it is just too much.

And I really like what I have with my partner. I don’t want this woman’s inability to read a room or accept no and hard boundaries to cast a shadow on something that’s actually good.

What do you want someone reading this to understand?

That no isn’t always loud. Sometimes, no is someone redirecting every conversation. Someone is keeping their distance. Someone is telling you clearly that they are building something with someone else. Those are all nos. And when you keep pushing past them, even softly, even with a smile, you’re not being romantic. You’re not just not listening, you鈥檙e being coercive. In fact, you are being a man. 

Next Read: Meet the Winners of the 2026 91大神 HER Women of the Year Awards

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Louise*, 23, grew up in a household where her father’s sister was always around, watching and nitpicking. Nobody liked it when she visited. Then one Ramadan morning, Louise’s sister woke up and wasn’t herself anymore. What followed was one of the most terrifying years of her family’s life, and the beginning of something her aunt didn’t see coming. This is what she said.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Louise, I’m 23. Lagos born and bred, still here. I’m a content creator, and when I’m not working, I’m reading or watching movies. Pretty simple life, honestly.

What made you decide to tell this story?

A friend sent me a What She Said article, and that’s how I even found out about the platform. When I saw the form, I just thought, it’s time. It’s something my family has healed from, so why keep it to ourselves? Someone else might need to hear it.

How would you describe the last few years of your life?

Quite insane. That’s the most accurate thing I can say.

Let’s go back. What was your household or family life like growing up?

I grew up with my parents and 3 siblings. However, we had our aunt come over way more times than necessary. The malice was always obvious. I can’t remember most of my earliest memories, but no one, absolutely no one, liked being around her. My siblings and I hated it whenever she was around. My mum would become more subdued because any little thing, and that one had started nitpicking. From the cooking, the way the house was arranged, and how my mum spoke to my dad. There was always something. She never came in peace. The only person who seemed okay with her presence was our father, and that was because she’s his sister. Family and everything. But the rest of us could feel it every time she walked in. It was like the air changed.

What exactly do you think her problem was? 

She was definitely jealous of our father. She didn’t like our mother either, but that wasn’t really jealousy; that was something else entirely. With our father, it was envy, deep envy. He had everything she didn’t. A good job, a solid marriage, a home that was actually running, all his children on a path to become something. 

She didn’t have a husband. Her children, who are way older than most of the cousins because she had them very early, all out of wedlock, were barely hanging on. One had already had a child out of wedlock, too. So she’d come into our father’s house and see the life she wanted and couldn’t have, and I think that ate at her up every single time. The visits were never just visits. They were her coming to measure herself against him and going home feeling worse.

Did that ever change?

No. It only got worse. My mum had heard from other family members that our aunt was involved in diabolical things spiritually. There was even a story that she had almost caused the death of another sibling’s husband, that that one nearly died, and it was traced back to her. But my mum didn’t read too much into it at the time. She kept telling herself that yes, this woman is wicked, but she can’t be THAT wicked. So even when people were warning her to keep herself and her children away from my aunt, she didn’t fully listen. She thought they were exaggerating. She was too generous with the benefit of the doubt, and I think she knows that now. Then one morning, everything changed. 

What happened?

It was a usual Ramadan morning. I was about ten. My sister and I were just talking the way we always did, and then she started saying things that didn’t make sense. At first, I was just confused; I didn’t understand what was happening. But she kept mixing her words, and before long, she was dancing with no music playing, and she was talking to people who weren’t there. I called my parents, and even they thought she was joking at first. My sister has never been a joker so that didn’t last long. Then she started taking off her clothes in the middle of the living room and banging her chest, and that’s when everyone understood that something was very, very wrong.

You’ll Love: My Teacher Tried to Rape Me. The School Made Me Pay for It

Ah. What happened next?

It was a terrifying experience. That’s the only word. My parents were trying to hold it together for the rest of us, but you could feel that they were falling apart on the inside. My sister, who had been completely fine the day before, was now someone we didn’t recognise. She’d look at you and not see you. She’d be laughing at things that weren’t there and then crying for no reason and then just standing completely still in the middle of a room. The house felt like it was holding its breath. Nobody knew what to do, and everyone was pretending to be calmer than they were.

How did the family try to get answers?

My parents did their best to keep the younger ones away from the details, so a lot of this I had to piece together later. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital first. But the madness kept getting worse, and even the medical people couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She had woken up completely fine and then just lost herself, and there was no medical explanation for it. My mum was at her wits’ end. She was crying to a friend one day, and the friend suggested an Alfa, saying that if the hospital couldn’t find anything, maybe this man could. My mum was desperate. She convinced my dad, and they took my sister to him.

The Alfa told them the person doing this to their daughter lives right inside their house. My dad stormed out. That’s his elder sister. Why would she do that to him? He refused to believe it. My mum said it felt like a film to both of them.

The Alfa said he wasn’t going to try to convince my dad, but he would help my sister get better. He also said that whatever was sent would backfire one hundred per cent on the person who sent it. My mum didn’t even care about that part at that point; she just wanted her child back. She also kept asking herself what the Alfa had to gain from lying to them. He didn’t know who they were. He had nothing to gain.

Did your sister get better?

She did, all thanks to the Alfa. That period when she came back to herself was one of the happiest the house had felt in a long time. Everyone was just relieved. You don’t realise how much space fear takes up until it’s gone.

And then my aunt came around to congratulate the family. My mum just said thank you. She was still very wary, but there was no concrete evidence, nothing she could point to and say this is proof, so they didn’t confront her. Life continued. My mum watched her and said nothing. But she didn鈥檛 stop watching.

How was the family in the months after, while things were back to normal?

Cautiously okay. I think everyone was just grateful, but also not fully settled. My parents had heard what the Alfa said, and even if my dad didn’t want to believe it, I think it was sitting somewhere in both of them. My mum, especially. She was warm on the surface, but something in her had shifted permanently. You could feel it. She wasn’t the same around my aunt after that. The visits became shorter. The welcomes became cooler. My mum was cordial the way you are with someone you’ve decided you can never fully trust again.

Then?

The following year, also during Ramadan. My aunt’s youngest daughter, the one who had just finished polytechnic, came to stay with us for a week to help my mum around the house. I was already on edge just from the PTSD of watching my sister the year before. Two days into the visit, my cousin started showing the exact same signs. Dancing to no music. Mixing her words. Seeing people who weren’t there. Standing in the middle of the room, unreachable. I had already seen this once, and I still wasn’t ready to see it again.

What did the family make of it?

Everyone understood immediately. It wasn’t something you needed to explain at that point. And unlike the first time with my sister, there was no confusion, no running to hospitals, no scrambling for answers. Everyone just knew. The whole family eventually knew what it was and why it was happening. It became something people talked about openly, that my cousin went mad every Ramadan because of what my aunt had put on my sister. The curse had simply gone home.

And yet my aunt refused to acknowledge it for years. Every Ramadan, it was the same cycle. Her daughter would have an episode for days. They’d pray. She’d get better. Everyone would breathe. Then the next Ramadan, it would start all over again. My aunt would watch her own child go through what she had deliberately put on someone else’s child, and she still could not bring herself to say the words. I don’t know what that kind of stubbornness costs a person, but it must be something.

Did she ever confess?

When her daughter got to the point where she was at risk of walking into the street and throwing herself in front of a moving bus. That’s when my aunt finally apologised to my parents. Because if she hadn’t, her daughter would never have gotten better. It took her years to get to that point. Years of watching her child suffer the same thing she had deliberately put on someone else’s child, and she still couldn’t bring herself to say it until the situation became truly life or death. That tells you everything about the kind of person she is.

If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

How did your mum receive that apology?

My mum doesn’t think it was enough. And honestly, I understand her. Watching your child become unrecognisable, not knowing what is wrong, running to hospitals, running to spiritual people, the fear of every single day, carrying that while still having to function, still having to feed other children and show up and pretend you’re okay, and then to find out someone did that deliberately. Someone who ate in your house and smiled in your face. That kind of apology doesn’t cover that. It was an apology she gave because she had no other option, not because she was genuinely sorry. My mum knows the difference.

Does your aunt understand the full weight of what she did?

I don’t think so. I think she understands that she got caught and that it came back to her. Whether she actually feels the weight of what she put my family through, I doubt it. People like that usually don’t. The remorse is about consequences, not about the harm itself.

Do you think the debt has been paid?

I do. My aunt has done terrible things to almost every successful sibling she has, and she is still reaping all of it. Her life is the evidence. So yes, I think the scales have balanced. Good riddance, honestly.

If you could sit across from her today and say one thing, what would it be?

Frankly? Fuck you.

Read Next: How This Copywriter Leveraged Her Community To Make 鈧�37 Million in a Year

*Names have been changed.

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

Sarah*, 26, was a model student at her secondary school, the kind teachers put forward for debates and trusted with prefect positions, until a teacher started harassing her, and the school that was supposed to protect her became one of the most unsafe places she’d ever been. She figured out how to survive it mostly on her own. She’s still figuring out what to do with that. This is what she said.

TW: Sexual assault, Self-harm

Tell us who you are

My name is Sarah, I’m 26. I’m a client and marketing manager, Lagos born and bred, still here. When I’m not working, I’m watching movies, listening to music, and hanging out with my friends. I love creating content too, still learning, but I enjoy it.

What made you want to tell this story?

I think I just got tired of carrying it quietly. It’s one of those things that shaped so much of who I became, and most people around me don’t fully know what happened. I thought, why not just say it.

Take me back to secondary school. What were you like?

I was a good student. Like genuinely, I cared about school. I was the kind of person teachers put forward for things like debates and leadership. I was a girls’ hostel prefect. The school’s director, who was a pastor, saw me as this perfect girl and was proud of me for it. I liked being that person. I worked for it. Then everything changed.

When did things start to change?

There was a teacher. I’ll call him Mr D. He started by touching me inappropriately. This wasn’t even the first time something like this had happened to me. He was always caressing my lap. It happened when teachers weren’t around, and the school was quiet. He’d send another student to come and call me, and you can’t disrespect a teacher, so you go. And when I was there, I’d just freeze. I don’t know how to explain it except that I couldn’t move or speak. Like my body just stopped working. It went on like that for a while.

Why didn’t you tell anyone?

Who was I going to tell? All my teachers were male. And I’d seen male teachers dating students in that school, so what were my chances that if I spoke to one of them, they wouldn’t cover for him or make it worse? The person who was supposed to be protecting me was the one doing it. That’s the thing people don’t understand: when the threat is coming from someone with authority over you, there’s nobody to report to. You’re just stuck.

How long did it go on?

I started finding ways to avoid him. If someone came to call me, I’d say I wasn’t there. It worked for a while. Then one day, I was looking for a different teacher. I didn’t see whoever he’d sent to call me, and he found me directly. He tried to finger me right there, and I screamed and ran. After that, I avoided him even harder. He eventually stopped coming to the school. I don’t know what happened, and I was so relieved. Even then, if I saw someone who looked like him, I’d freeze. If his name came up in conversation, my mood would just drop immediately. But at least he wasn’t physically there.

What happened next?

He came back in SS2. I was on the school compound on a Saturday, and lessons were done. Someone told me he’d been there earlier and already left, and I was happy. Then I came out of one of the buildings, and he was just there. I froze on the spot. My friends were asking me why I was standing there looking like that, and I couldn’t explain it.

He said he wanted to apologise. He said he wanted to talk to me privately. And I made a mistake I’ve thought about many times since then. I was very forgiving when I was young, almost to a fault. I always thought the best of people. I always wanted peace, so I went with him to hear what he had to say. We were at the back of the school building, where there was a dry fishing pond. And he grabbed me.

What?

He grabbed me and started touching me. I tried to scream, and he covered my mouth. He pushed me to the ground, tore my shirt, and tried to penetrate me. I was a virgin, and I kept struggling, and eventually my voice got loud enough that he stopped and left. He didn’t get what he wanted, but I was on the ground, shirt torn, crying, shaking. I kept thinking, what did I do for this to happen to me? I felt stupid and angry, and I had nobody to call.

What did you do after he left?

I was screaming. I found a bottle somewhere, and I broke it. I wanted to stab my stomach, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I started cutting my hand with the broken glass instead. Then I went to the hostel to get a knife and went back and stabbed my hand badly. I still have the scar. I was bleeding, and I think that’s when someone found me.

Do you remember what was going through your head in that moment?

I just wanted it to stop. All of it. I didn’t know how to make it stop any other way. I couldn’t run home, there was no means to get there. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I’d been holding all of it alone for so long, and something just broke that day.

What happened after they found you?

They had me write everything down. Every day I’d go and write what happened and how I was feeling. Questions were asked of other students, and it became a big thing around the school. Some teachers became more caring towards me after that. They arrested him. They called me from the hostel to come and see when they did it. And then they let him go.

They let him go?

They let him go. I don’t know the full reason, but my feeling is they didn’t want a scandal for the school. And after everything, he still came back. He’d come around during the holidays because he had a friend who lived near the school, and he’d try to talk to me, tell me he’d changed, try to touch me. It just kept going.

I don鈥檛 know how he even got my number, maybe from a friend or a colleague, but he would text me sometimes, just 鈥渉i,鈥� trying to start conversations. At some point, I told him very clearly that if he ever contacted me again, I would get boys to beat him up, and I meant it. I told him to stay away from me because I didn鈥檛 mind bringing everything back up and getting him arrested again.

And the school director, the one who was so proud of you before, how did he respond to all of this?

That was its own thing. After everything came out, he turned on me completely. Before this, he was proud of me; he was always putting me forward for things. After this, he punished me for everything. If other students did something and got let off, I’d be beaten, flogged, called ashawo, and called useless. He’d do it in front of people on purpose. One time, he called me in front of a parent and just started telling them everything, calling me names, saying I was sleeping with a teacher. I was 13 or 14. I was so angry, I just walked away from them. He called me back and slapped me so hard I couldn’t hear properly for two days. The school was three floors, and people at the top could hear the slap.

He was a pastor. He had all these rules about boys and girls not being seen together. And this is how he treated a child who had been assaulted by a man he employed.

Did you tell your parents any of this?

No. They were barely around, my dad especially. My mum was strict, so it made it hard to open up to her. We only had two or three weeks’ holiday at a time, and even then, how do you summon the courage to say something like that in that window of time to someone you’re scared of? When she eventually heard and asked me why I hadn’t told her, I didn’t have a clean answer. But I also feel like a mother should notice when her child isn’t comfortable. There were signs. I was shutting down, my behaviour was changing. Nobody asked why.

You mentioned this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to you.

No. When I was about five or six, a family member harassed me. I didn’t talk about it then either. When I finally told my mum about it much later, she spoke to that family member directly, which meant I had to deal with that family member asking me if I was sure it happened, if I was still angry at him, basically treating me like I was lying. Even when a prayer pastor was told, nothing was done. So by the time secondary school happened, I already had a blueprint for how this was going to go. You speak, nothing happens, you just have to deal.

How did it start affecting you in ways other people could see?

I became very aggressive, especially towards boys. I slashed a classmate’s face with a blade once in literature class because he touched me. Another time, I tried to stab a classmate with a biro because he was tickling me and being loud with me. I knew what I was doing wasn’t okay, but I couldn’t control it. Any physical contact from a male, and something in me just went. My mood was different; I stopped being the jovial person I used to be. I kept to myself. It was also around this time that I started noticing I had a liking for girls, not romantically, just that being around them felt safer. I don’t fully know how to explain it.

Without therapy, without anyone to talk to, how did you actually get through each day?

Books mostly. Movies. Any time the thoughts would start coming, I’d reach for something to put in my head instead. I read a lot of the Bible during that period, and I cried a lot doing it. It sounds simple, but it was genuinely what kept me functional.

I also wrote a lot. I had a diary then, and I would write everything down. If I couldn鈥檛 write during the week, on Saturdays I would replay everything that happened and write it all down. I even had a separate journal where I wrote Bible verses and prayers, asking God to heal me. That process, writing and praying, was how I started to heal gradually.

After secondary school, if anything bad happened to me, I would go back to that trauma mentally. It would feel like a cycle, like a replay. Sometimes I would self-harm again, cutting myself on my legs or hands. Eventually, I just kept praying for healing because it felt like no one else was helping me. Most people around me had already moved on or forgotten, so it was just me trying to find a way out of it.

I’m also someone who physically gets sick when I cry too much, so at some point, I made a decision that I was not going to let myself spiral because my body couldn’t handle it. I would forgive, I would move forward, I would just get on with it. A lot of people would find that hard to believe, but for me, it was survival. Sitting in the pain wasn’t going to save me. Finding an escape was.

What does your relationship with all of this look like now?

I’m okay. I mean that genuinely, not in a brushing it off way. I’ve made peace with most of it.

I don鈥檛 know when I stopped repressing certain feelings, but now, when I think about it, I get emotional. Some days I even feel like finding the book I wrote everything in and reading it again, but my mum hid it. Maybe part of me just wants to fully face it, or maybe to finally forget it properly.

My headspace is better than before. I still forgive, but not like I used to. Now I have doubts. I鈥檓 more observant, and once I see something, there鈥檚 nothing anyone can say to make me trust them again. I just want to be at peace with myself.

I hate rapists so much. I don鈥檛 even engage when I see rape cases online because it triggers me. I just avoid it completely.

The parts that still sting are mostly about the people who should have protected me and didn’t, my parents for not noticing, the school for protecting itself instead of me, and the family that questioned me instead of believing me. Those are the parts I still sit with sometimes.

If you could talk to the version of yourself that was on the ground behind that school building, what would you say to her?

I’d tell her it’s not her fault. None of it. Not the trusting someone who said sorry, not the freezing when she should have run, not any of it. She was a child, and she was let down by every adult who was supposed to keep her safe. That’s not something she did wrong.

I鈥檇 also tell her that she survived. Even with everything, she survived. She鈥檚 not weak. I鈥檝e always been a strong person, and she was strong even then. I鈥檒l never stop being a strong babe, still a friendly person, still a fighter.

What do you want someone reading this to take away?

If you’re in it right now, find your escape, whatever keeps you moving. And know that healing doesn’t have to look like therapy or talking about it until you’re raw. Sometimes it looks like survival first and understanding later. Both are valid. You’re allowed to just get through it however you can.

And if you don鈥檛 have help or someone to talk to, the best thing you can do is try to find peace. Find things that bring you happiness, things that help you grow. Find comfort in what you love. Love yourself, love your body, even when you don鈥檛 feel good enough.

For me, I became so passionate about the things I loved that I slowly stopped focusing on what happened to me. You can try therapy, you can confide in people you trust, but also know that healing can start in small, personal ways.

I hope you find healing. I still have moments where I want to cry when I think about everything, but I also know now that I鈥檓 stronger.

*Names have been changed.

If you or someone you know is struggling with the aftermath of sexual violence, the WARIF helpline is available at 08000 930 000. If you are experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please reach out to Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) at hello@mani.ng