Every week, Culture Custodian talks to Nigerians who share their tidbits about their lives. This week, we have three women talk about how they found out they were watched and stalked:
Samira
I broke up with my ex-boyfriend when I was in university. I was pursuing my diploma when we met, he was a sweet guy who gave me lots of gifts and attention; it later changed to this obsession. I ignored all the red flags because I thought he was going through a phase. What I mean is he was controlling, judgmental and abusive. When I told him I got admission to continue my studies in a different university, his insecurity issues started. He kept telling me that he knew that I refused to continue my studies at ABU Zaria university because I wanted to cheat on him; what seemed like a joke turned into something so serious. I know he is an emotional person, but he took it overboard. It was clear I was dating a psychopath when I resumed at my new university and started frequent phone calls from him, about 200 messages a day, and if I refused to pick because I was in class, he would send me threatening texts. What surprised me the most was one day, I got tired and blocked his line; guess who showed up to my class the following day? He made sure he held my hand and followed me home. One day, I went to the campus market to get some things for the week. When I got back, my door was unlocked. I was surprised because I knew I locked it before leaving, then saw his shoes at the entrance and knew he had broken into my room. When I scolded him about it, he said he wanted to surprise me and catch me cheating, then laughed. I was so confused, and I felt unsafe. So I moved to my friends place not so far from school; I don’t know how he found out I was living there and came to the house some weeks later. I was in the kitchen when my friend told me someone was looking for me when I went to the living room and saw his face, and I was so angry at this point fear left me, I wasn’t scared again. I told him to get the fuck out, he started shouting and slapped me; my friend saw all that happened and pushed him out and shut the door; I was crying, so I narrated everything to her. Then she came up with a plan; luckily, her brother was in the army, so he told us to let him know anytime he came around. One evening while I was coming home from night tutorials, I met him outside the house crying; when he saw me, he started begging me not to leave him, luckily my friend was close by and called her brother, who came with two other military men that picked him up. The last I know was he was beaten and threatened. I never saw him again, and I am so thankful.
Wunmi
I am 20 years old and petite. I work as a waitress in a bar, and I know my job entails being nice to everyone, even when it creeps me out. Two years ago, this middle-aged man paid regular visits to our bar because we also have a section where you can eat; he’d stop by and have lunch almost every week. One day, I served him. He said he was fascinated by my petiteness and my piercings and kept asking me questions about my family, where I was from and all. I wasn’t comfortable because of the questions, and the fact that our supervisor didn’t want us having conversations with the clients. This sudden interest in me continued, and I noticed any time he stopped by the bar, he would keep staring at me even while I served other customers. This behaviour went on for three weeks, and he kept trying to get my number, saying he had a boutique and sells some pretty dresses that would fit me. My colleagues felt I was playing hard to get as they’d jump at the opportunity because he had this lovely car. One Sunday, a few customers came in, and our boss needed some help with an event, so most of my colleagues were sent to work for her while I took care of business, and business was relatively slow that day, so I was on my phone all through the day until the delivery phone rang. I picked up and said, “Thanks for reaching for the Ornamental bar; how may we be of service today.” The caller replied: “Shey, this is the short girl with plenty of earrings.” Me: “Yes, who is this?” Him: “ Are you alone? Hope nobody is there with you?” At this point, I felt shivers go down my spine; why would he ask that? I hung up and told the other colleague I had working with me. She said I should keep calm and see what happens that the other will soon arrive. He called again and again. When I picked; he started asking me weird questions like what I would do in a room with him if the doors were locked if I had a boyfriend, why I was playing hard to get etc. I hung up the call and saved the number on my phone. Luckily, my supervisor, boss, and colleagues returned to the bar, so I told my boss and supervisor about it.
He called again, this time my boss answered the call and till today she never told me what he said but judging by the look on her face I was so scared. She then told him that she would have him handed over to security if he called or showed up again. A few weeks later, I was completing my night shift by 11 pm, so I clocked out, and I was walking towards an uber I ordered when I looked across the road and saw him standing close to my car. However, he didn’t see me, but I saw him trying to enter the car, but it was locked. I rushed back to the bar and told my boss about it, and she alerted the security men, they dragged him from the front of the car. They found a butcher knife, rope and a rag with a chemical on him. If I hadn’t spoken up, I would probably be dead by now. I took some time off to get myself together.
Chika
A few years back, when I was doing my master’s program, I was a victim of a long-term stalker which started as a joke. That valentine’s day, I received a ‘secret admirer’ text message from an unknown number, so I assumed it was one of my guys playing a joke as I had many friends that loved playing pranks. I then messaged them on our WhatsApp group to ask if they were messing with me. They all denied it, which I believed (they’re pretty bad liars). It was further confirmed that it was none of them when a call came in and the voice on the other end asked, ‘Is Chika?”. I replied, ‘Yes, who is this? Hoping I will be able to identify the voice. The person then hung up resumed texting. Things started to get weird when the person asked me what I was doing later that night, repeatedly followed by a series of personal questions. I replied ‘Yes’ because I was studying, but they kept insisting we needed to see. What further complicated it was getting several images sent to me from a strange email (username)@textnow.me.’ This confirmed it wasn’t an actual number, and I now had a username to connect to the person. I don’t know if it was their intention, but I got curious and decided to dig deeper into this. I kept texting the person back and forth to get more information, thereby creating it into a profile and eliminating possibilities. Unfortunately, this encouraged them, as they insisted I send pictures. Then they sent a weird one. The person sent a picture of lingerie and captioned it, ‘When I finally meet you.’ This person kept asking me where I was going to be that evening, and I refused to bulge, so the person dropped an address to a bar that they were going to be at that evening but refused to give details. Even if my friend invited me out that day, I had a test, so I wasn’t going out that day. Then I got another bombshell. They asked if I stayed along Steven Adeniji, which I did… I recognized the apartment style they were in based on a picture from earlier, so I decided I’d throw a curveball. ‘You live in (this complex), right?’ ‘What??’ ‘How do you know?’ Me: ‘I recognized your door.’ All the funny apartments had the same colour door frame, visible on the edge of a picture they sent. The conversation died after that question; I didn’t go to that party and didn’t get any more texts… Fast forward to the next month, I was about to round up my program, and I was busy as f*CK. One evening I got a text from an unknown number asking, ‘Is this Chika?’ (my full name) So I played dumb, pretended like I wasn’t panicking that after many months this person was contacting me again, and I still hadn’t figured out who it was. These questions were instantly more personal and made me worried. I was fed up with these games, and I still had school work to do; however, I wanted to see if I could get more details and put an end to this. Towards the end of the session in December, they proceeded to call me multiple times, I denied every call, but they kept coming. I think there were 14 calls that night… I turned my phone off. The following week I was in the class as students presented their final work on the projector, and I queued multiple tabs on the projection computer. Two different students had worked on Google Drive. When the second student logged in to their account, they didn’t open a private window, so it logged out; the first student saw this happen, but the first student wasn’t in the room, so when she came back, I asked her to re-login. We were both standing in the projection booth, she was at one end on the computer, and I was messing with the sound system on the other side, but happened to turn and look at the projector screen when she logged in to Google. This hit me like a ton of bricks. The username she logged in with was the same username as the TextNow account sending me photos. I quickly turned away and pretended to be busy with something until she finished opening her work. I thanked her, and she left the booth without realizing her mistake. I tried to play it cool, but inside I was going crazy for the rest of the class.
After almost a year, I knew who it was. She finally slipped up, and honestly, I was much more scared now than I had ever been. This person had a history of being pretty creepy around my friends, and although she had never personally interacted with me outside of class, all my friends had strange experiences. I made a meeting with a counsellor who seemed to care and offered to look into it. A couple of weeks later, the school emailed me saying, ‘This student is going abroad next semester, so we’re not going to do anything.’ I insisted that at least something temporary be put into place. They didn’t do anything, but what did I expect. This school is pretty notorious for not listening to their student. I didn’t run into her again; she hasn’t texted me. So, for the time, that is where the story ends.
This article is based on real-life events. Names used are mere pseudonyms to protect the identities of the individuals mentioned in the article.
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