This article is part of Had I Known, Zikoko’s theme for September 2025, where we explore Nigerian stories of regret and the lessons learnt. Read more Had I Known stories here.
Chiamaka*, 28, reflects on the years she kept quiet after her uncle’s unwanted advances. She believed her silence would protect her aunt, but it only deepened the heartbreak when the truth finally came out.
TW: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault and harassment that some readers may find distressing.
“Had I known, I would’ve spoken the very first day he touched me. Maybe then my aunt’s heartbreak wouldn’t carry my silence inside it.”
As told to Princess
He had just parked the car in the apartment lot, engine still humming, AC blowing faintly. My hand was already on the door handle, ready to step out, when he leaned towards me. At first, I thought he was reaching for something in the glove box. But then his arm shot past me, blocking the door.
Before I could move, he was already hovering over me, his cologne thick in the air, his breath hot on my cheek. His body pressed into mine, pinning me against the seat.
He told me to relax as he placed his hand on my shoulder. My stomach flipped.
I froze for a split second, panic flooding me. Then I shoved at his chest, hard, begging him to stop. He didn’t. He leaned even closer, his lips grazing my face, his weight heavier.
I twisted, pushed, and begged some more. Still, he didn’t stop. He held me by my upper arms, squeezing them together as his lips forcefully pushed mine open. With everything in me, I struggled, but every move just made it easier for him to shove his tongue down my throat. Not until instinct took over. I bit down hard on said tongue, as my fingers grabbed something sharp from the side pocket — I don’t even know what it was, maybe a keychain or metal clip — and I dragged it across his cheek.
He jumped back instantly, cursing loudly. He held his jaw, his tongue sticking out as blood welled up. I ran out of the car, my legs weak, my chest heaving like I’d just sprinted miles.
The world outside looked the same — cars driving past, children laughing in the distance — but I couldn’t breathe. I staggered to the staircase, every part of me trembling, heart pounding loud enough to drown out my racing mind.
I was 17 when my aunt, Ify*, got married. She was 26, just nine years older than me, but we were more like sisters than aunt and niece. In January, she had her wedding. By summer, after my first year in university, I went to Lagos to spend the holiday with her and her new husband.
That was the first time I properly stayed with them. Before then, we only ever saw each other during school breaks. She lived in Abuja with my grandma; her mum, and I grew up in Port Harcourt. Still, we talked all the time. When she moved to Lagos, naturally, I had to visit.
I remember landing at the airport, dragging my box behind me. My aunt was glowing, freshly married, in love. Desmond*, her husband, came to pick us up. He was 39 then, much older, but he easily related with anyone. He loaded my box into the car, asked about my flight, and drove us to their place in Chevron.
The apartment was a three-bedroom, tastefully furnished. It still had that bachelor’s pad edge, but you could tell he’d put money and thought into it. That first summer was smooth. He treated me like a younger sister. He doted on my aunt, always buying us both things and taking us out. They argued here and there, but nothing alarming. To me, they looked happy.
I stayed the whole holiday and nothing happened. Nothing at all. Their home felt safe, even welcoming. Looking back now, maybe his eyes lingered on me a little too long. But at 17, my mind didn’t even go there. Why would it? This was my aunt’s husband.
The following year, I turned 18, and things shifted. Not drastically, but enough that I can now say I noticed. He had always been generous, chatty, and charming. But suddenly, the compliments were constant. “You look beautiful,” he’d say when I dressed up, sometimes in front of my aunt, sometimes when she wasn’t around. Once or twice, he brushed against me in passing, little touches that made me pause but that I quickly shook off.
Also, I was careful. I never lingered alone with him. If my aunt left a room, I followed. For the most part, he never crossed the line. He was busy anyway, gone before sunrise, back late at night. His work as an engineer kept him out.
Sometimes, my aunt shared little things. She was happy, but I could also see how drained she looked. I remember thinking once that he might be cheating — the hushed calls, the way he guarded his phone, the sudden coldness. But I had no proof, and she never mentioned infidelity. I wasn’t about to throw in suspicions I couldn’t back up.
Two years later, my aunt got pregnant. I was 21, fresh out of school and serving in Lagos. I lived with them, helping her out as she got closer to her delivery date. Desmond even helped me secure a cushy NYSC posting at his brother’s company. ₦100,000 a month, minus the ₦19k alawee, and since I wasn’t paying rent, life felt easy for the first time.
That was when everything changed.
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Because of the posting, I sometimes rode with him to work. At first, it felt harmless. Then came the little things: his hand brushing my thigh as he reached for the gear, his eyes watching me in the rearview mirror. And then one day, it escalated.
We had just gotten back to the house. We were parked in the lot at home. That was when he forced his tongue down my throat.
I didn’t tell my aunt. She was eight months pregnant. How do you look a glowing woman in the eye, belly full with new life, and tell her that the man she trusts is a predator?
People will say I should have spoken up immediately. Maybe they’re right. That day, the proof was on his face. A fresh cut, blood dripping. My aunt was upstairs. I could’ve told her. Instead, I locked myself in my room and cried until I couldn’t breathe.
The rest of that week, I avoided him. Claimed I was sick, skipped work, and shadowed my aunt. But silence didn’t stop him. If anything, it emboldened him. He started moving sneakier. One day, I followed him on the back of an okada, behind him as he drove out in his car. I stayed far enough not to draw attention, but close enough to see where he turned. My chest was tight the whole way.
He parked near a quiet side street, glanced in the mirror like he was checking for shadows, then got out. Moments later, a woman appeared. She was petite, light-skinned and dressed for the office. She walked straight to him like it was routine. He leaned on the car casually, said something that made her laugh, then opened the passenger door and let her in, but not before grazing her full, round ass with his palm. Watching from my bike, I felt sick. It wasn’t a mistake; it wasn’t once. He was deliberate and rehearsed.
I told myself I’d wait until after the baby. She needed strength to hear it. But by then, too much had unravelled — his advances had grown bolder, my silence heavier, and their marriage already strained with pointless and harmful fights, distance, and coldness.
After she gave birth, her world revolved around the child. Sleepless nights, diapers, breastfeeding. She barely had time for herself, let alone the cracks in her marriage. And me? I drowned in guilt. Every time I tried to speak, the words died in my throat.
So I stayed quiet. And he knew I would. He tested boundaries again; whispers when she left the room, a hand grazing my waist, eyes that lingered too long, once he even grabbed my ass, and I couldn’t do a thing. Ify* walked in immediately after. Sometimes, he smiled like he knew he had me trapped.
One day, I snapped. I followed him again. This time, I saw him in broad daylight with another woman, younger, carefree, laughing like he had nothing to lose. My hands trembled as I tried to take a picture, bile rose in my throat. It wasn’t just me. He was everywhere, with everyone. And still, my aunt was at home, nursing his child, loving him.
When I finally told her, it wasn’t planned. It came out one evening after one of their fights. She was crying, saying she didn’t understand why he treated her so coldly, why she felt unloved. And I blurted it out: the car, the cut, the other women, the pictures.
Her face. God, I will never forget the way her face broke. It was like watching the light drain out of someone’s eyes. She didn’t call me a liar. She didn’t scream. She just sat in silence, tears streaming down her cheeks. That silence cut deeper than any insult ever could.
After that, things shifted. She didn’t leave him immediately. Maybe she couldn’t, not with a newborn, not with the shame she feared. But she was never the same. She looked at him differently. She looked at me differently, too. Not with hate, but with a sadness that still haunts me.
People will always ask why I waited. Why didn’t I scream it the moment it happened? Why did I protect him even for a second? And I don’t have a good answer. Fear. Shock. Shame. Love for my aunt. A desperate hope that if I stayed silent, it would disappear.
But it never does.
Now, years later, I don’t know what hurts more: what he did to me, or what my silence did to her.
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