Every week, Zikoko spotlights the unfiltered stories of women navigating life, love, identity and everything in between. 

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.

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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’t 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.

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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.

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*Names have been changed.