EPISODE 2
Mama stood frozen in the living room unable to deny what I had just said because I had caught her taking my used sanitary pads to a native doctor in Mushin.
She tried to laugh it off and said I must have been mistaken and that she went to the Mosque for prayers like she always did.
I told her I saw everything including the native doctor in white garments with red beads and the plastic bags she handed to him along with money.
Her face changed from fake innocence to something cold and she asked me why I was following her around like a spy.
I screamed that she was the one stealing my bl00d from the bathroom trash every morning at five o’clock for the past three months.
She realized there was no point in lying anymore and she sat down on the sofa with a calm expression that terrified me.
I demanded to know what she was doing with my used sanitary pads and why she was taking them to a native doctor.
Mama looked at me without any shame and said yes I have been taking your monthly bl00d to Baba Aladura for r!tuals.
I felt my legs go weak and I asked her what kind of r!tuals she was talking about.
She said very calmly that she paid the native doctor to do juju to close my womb so I would never be able to give Chinedu children.
I could not breathe as I processed what she had just admitted which was that my own mother-in-law had been trying to make me permanently infert!le.
I asked her why she would do something so ev!l to me and she said because you are Igbo and my son deserves a proper Yoruba wife who will give him Yoruba children.
She said she had already suffered thirty years being married to her late husband who was Igbo and converted to Islam just to marry her but he still insisted on giving their son an Igbo name to honor his heritage.
She said she sacrificed everything by allowing an Igbo man into her life and watching him maintain his tribal identity despite becoming Muslim and she refused to let another Igbo woman continue what his father started.
She explained that from the day Chinedu introduced me five years ago she knew I was wrong for him because of my tribe.
She said she tried to stop our marriage but Chinedu refused to listen to her and married me anyway against her wishes.
For two years she watched me fail to get pregnant and she decided to make sure I never would by using juju to permanently seal my womb.
I was shaking with rage and asked her how long she had been doing these rituals.
Mama said she started three months ago when she moved into our house and got access to my bathroom trash.
She explained that every time my period came she would collect the used pads and take them to Baba Aladura on Thursdays.
The native doctor told her that a woman’s monthly bl00d is the most powerful thing for fertility rituals whether to give or take away.
I asked how much she had paid for these evil rituals and she opened her handbag and pulled out a stack of receipts.
She showed me receipts totaling five hundred thousand naira that she had paid the native doctor over three months.
I could not believe she had spent half a million naira to curse me and I asked where she got that kind of money.
Mama said it was from her savings that my late father-in-law left her and it was money well spent to free Chinedu from me.
She said the native doctor promised that within six months I would become so desperate about not conceiving that I would leave the marriage myself.
I grabbed my phone and called Chinedu at work telling him to come home immediately because his mother had something to confess.
He asked what was wrong and I said your mother has been doing juju on me using my menstrual blood and you need to hear this yourself.
Chinedu said I must be joking or confused but I told him I had proof and he needed to come home right now.
While waiting for Chinedu I demanded that Mama show me everything she had collected from me.
She refused and said the items were with Baba Aladura for the final r!tual.
I told her I did not believe her and I was going to search her room for whatever else she was hiding.
Mama tried to stop me but I pushed past her and went into the guest room where she had been living.
I searched through her closet and under her bed until I found a locked metal box pushed far back in the corner.
I demanded the key but Mama refused so I grabbed a hammer from the kitchen and broke the lock.
Inside the metal box I found twelve used sanitary pads individually wrapped in tissue paper.
There were also photographs of me that had been taken secretly, a lock of my hair that must have been taken from my brush, and my nail clippings from the bathroom trash.
I found a small bottle of black liquid, a piece of red cloth, and handwritten instructions from the native doctor on what Mama should collect.
I felt so v!olated seeing all these intimate parts of myself that had been stolen and used for witchcraft against me.
I was physically sick and ran to the bathroom to vomit while Mama stood in the doorway saying I was overreacting.
She said every Yoruba mother would do the same to protect her son from a wrong marriage.
When Chinedu arrived home I showed him the metal box with everything inside and the receipts for five hundred thousand naira.
He stared at his mother in shock and asked if this was really true.
Mama looked at him and said yes I did it for you because that Igbo woman is cursed and will never give you children.
EPISODE 3
Chinedu stood in the middle of our living room staring at the metal box full of my used sanitary pads and the receipts showing his mother had spent five hundred thousand naira on juju r!tuals.
Mama looked at him without any shame and said she did it to protect him from a cursed Igbo woman who could not give him children.
I was crying and shaking telling Chinedu that his mother had v!olated me in the worst way possible by collecting my bl00d for w!tchcraft.
Chinedu asked his mother how she could do something so disturbing and she said every good Yoruba mother protects her son from wrong decisions.
She told him that I had been married to him for five years and struggling to conceive for two years which proved I was b@rren.
I screamed that we had both been to doctors who said there was nothing medically wrong with either of us and it was just a matter of time.
Mama laughed and said doctors do not understand spiritual problems and that my womb was closed by ancestral curses from my Igbo bl00dline.
She explained that her r!tuals with Baba Aladura were meant to force the truth to reveal itself so Chinedu would finally see I could never give him children.
Chinedu said Mama this is insane you cannot use juju on my wife and expect me to be okay with it.
Mama became defensive and said she had already spent five hundred thousand naira and done three months of r!tuals so the curse was already working.
She pointed at me and said look at her she still has no baby after all this time which proves my r!tuals are powerful.
I told Chinedu that his mother needed to leave our house immediately because I could not live under the same roof as someone who practiced w!tchcraft on me.
Mama said she had every right to live in her son’s house and that I was the one who should leave since I was a failure as a wife.
Chinedu finally spoke up and said Mama you collected my wife’s menstrual bl00d without permission and took it to a native doctor that is completely unacceptable.
Mama said it was for his own good and that in three more months the full effects of the ritual would manifest and I would be forced to leave.
She told him he could then marry a proper Yoruba woman from a good family who would give him many children without any problems.
I looked at Chinedu and said if your mother does not leave this house today then I am leaving because I will not be cursed in my own home.
Chinedu was torn between his wife and his mother and I could see the struggle on his face.
Mama saw his hesitation and said you see she is trying to separate you from your own mother just like I warned you Igbo women do.
I told Chinedu that I had done nothing wrong except marry him and try to build a family while his mother secretly worked to destroy me.
Chinedu took a deep breath and told his mother that she had crossed a line and she needed to pack her things and go back to Ibadan.
Mama looked shocked and asked if he was really choosing an Igbo woman over his own mother who gave birth to him.
He said he was choosing his wife who had been violated and disrespected in her own home for three months.
Mama stood up angrily and said fine I will leave but the r!tuals have already been completed and they cannot be undone.
She said the juju was already working in my body and within months I would realize I could never conceive and the marriage would end.
She warned Chinedu that he would regret choosing me over her wisdom and that he would come begging her for forgiveness when I left him childless.
Mama went to the guest room and started packing her bags while cursing me under her breath in Yoruba.
I heard her saying things like that Igbo witch will destroy my son and she will die b@rren like her grandmother.
After she finished packing Chinedu gave her money for transport back to Ibadan and she left our house still insisting her r!tuals would work.
As she walked out the door she turned and told me you think you won but Baba Aladura’s juju is irreversible and your womb is sealed forever.
After Mama left I sat on the sofa feeling v!olated and scared wondering if the juju she did was actually real.
Chinedu tried to comfort me saying it was all superstition and fake but I could not stop thinking about the metal box and all my blood she had collected.
I told Chinedu I needed to know if this juju was real or if it was all just Mama wasting money on nothing.
He asked what I planned to do and I said I wanted to find Baba Aladura the native doctor and confront him myself.
Chinedu said that was dangerous and I should just forget about it and move on with our lives.
I told him I could not move on without knowing if there was actually a curse on me that needed to be broken.
I called my best friend Nkechi who was a nurse and told her everything that had happened.
Nkechi was horrified and said she knew someone who understood how these native doctors operated and could help us investigate.
She said her cousin had dealt with a similar situation where someone did juju on her and she found out the native doctor was a complete fr@ud.
I asked Nkechi if she could arrange for us to meet this person and she said she would set it up for the next day.
Chinedu was reluctant but agreed to support me because he could see how traum@tized I was by what his mother had done.
That night I could not sleep thinking about my used sanitary pads in that metal box and wondering what ev!l things had been done with my bl00d.
I kept touching my stomach wondering if there really was a curse preventing me from getting pregnant or if it was all just Mama’s twisted imagination.
The next morning Nkechi called and said her cousin had arranged for us to visit Baba Aladura’s shrine in Mushin pretending we needed fertility help.
EPISODE 4
The next morning Nkechi came to my house with a plan to visit Baba Aladura’s shrine in Mushin pretending we needed fertility r!tuals.
She explained that her cousin had exposed a fake native doctor the same way by acting like a desperate client and getting him to admit the truth.
Nkechi said these so-called powerful babalawo were usually just sc@mmers who took money from desperate women and did absolutely nothing.
We took a taxi to Mushin and found the compound with red and white walls and cowrie shells on the gate where I had followed Mama weeks ago.
A young boy at the entrance asked what we wanted and Nkechi said we needed to see Baba Aladura for urgent fertility consultation.
The boy led us through the compound to a room where the native doctor sat on a mat surrounded by candles, cowrie shells, and strange bottles.
Baba Aladura was the same man I had seen before wearing white garments with red beads around his neck and wrists.
He introduced himself as Pastor Jeremiah Adeleke and asked what problems we had come to solve.
Nkechi pretended to be my sister and said I had been married for five years without conceiving and we needed powerful intervention.
Baba Aladura nodded seriously and said he specialized in opening wombs that had been closed by spiritual forces and ancestral curses.
He said his r!tuals were very powerful and had helped hundreds of b@rren women conceive children after doctors had failed them.
I played along and asked how much his services would cost.
He said for a case like mine it would require intensive r!tuals costing two hundred thousand naira to guarantee pregnancy within six months.
Nkechi asked if he had done this kind of r!tual before and he said yes just recently for a Yoruba woman whose Igbo daughter-in-law could not conceive.
My heart started racing when I realized he was talking about Mama and me without knowing I was that same daughter-in-law.
I asked him what happened with that case and whether the r!tuals worked.
Baba Aladura smiled and said the woman paid him five hundred thousand naira over three months to close the Igbo woman’s womb permanently.
He said she brought the daughter-in-law’s used sanitary pads every week and he performed powerful ceremonies to seal her fertility.
I asked him directly if those rituals actually worked to make someone infertile.
Baba Aladura looked at me carefully as if sensing something was wrong and then he suddenly laughed.
He said you want to know the truth about whether my juju works.
I told him yes I needed to know if his r!tuals had real power or if they were fake.
He leaned back and said since you are asking so directly I will tell you the truth which is that I did absolutely nothing to that woman.
I felt my hands shaking as he continued talking.
He explained that he took the Yoruba woman’s five hundred thousand naira and burned some incense and said some impressive-sounding words but it was all performance.
He said the used sanitary pads she brought were thrown in the regular trash fire behind the compound and nothing mystical was done with them.
Baba Aladura admitted that he was not even a real babalawo but just a failed pastor who discovered he could make more money sc@mming desperate people.
He said women like Mama came to him all the time wanting to control fertility or destroy enemies and he just took their money.
I asked him how he could sleep at night knowing he was sc@mming people and he shrugged saying everyone needs to survive.
Nkechi asked if he felt any guilt about taking five hundred thousand naira from someone for fake r!tuals.
He said the woman was trying to curse her own daughter-in-law so she deserved to lose her money for having such ev!l intentions.
I stood up and told him I was that Igbo daughter-in-law and his fake r!tuals had caused me months of fear and trauma.
Baba Aladura’s face changed to shock and he started apologizing saying he did not know I would find out.
I told him he owed me an explanation of exactly what he did with my blood and my personal items.
He admitted that everything Mama brought including the sanitary pads, my hair, my nail clippings, and my photos went straight into the trash.
He said he kept them for a few days to make it look like he was doing r!tuals but then threw everything away because he had no use for them.
I asked about the black liquid and red cloth in the metal box and he said those were just props he sold to clients to make the r!tuals seem real.
He showed us a back room filled with bottles of colored water, pieces of cloth, cowrie shells, and other meaningless items he sold as spiritual tools.
Nkechi recorded him on her phone as he admitted that none of his r!tuals had any power and he was just a con artist.
Baba Aladura begged us not to report him saying he had a family to feed and this was his only source of income.
I told him I wanted my mother-in-law’s five hundred thousand naira back immediately.
He said that was impossible because he had already spent the money on rent and feeding his children and he had nothing left.
I threatened to report him to the police for fr@ud but he said many people had threatened him before and nothing ever happened.
He explained that most of his clients were too ashamed to admit they had been sc@mmed because it would mean admitting they tried to use juju.
I realized he was right and that reporting him would expose Mama’s ev!l intentions publicly which might hurt Chinedu.
Nkechi and I left the shrine angry but also relieved knowing that there was no curse on me and Mama had wasted her money on nothing.
On the way home I called Mama and told her I had just visited Baba Aladura and discovered her five hundred thousand naira bought her absolutely nothing.
Mama said I was lying and that Baba Aladura was a powerful man who would never admit his secrets to outsiders.
I told her he confessed everything and that he threw my sanitary pads in the trash fire and did no real r!tuals.
She said I was trying to deceive her and that she knew the juju was working because I still had no baby.
I realized Mama would never accept that she had been sc@mmed because admitting it would mean admitting she wasted her money and accomplished nothing.
That night I felt relieved knowing there was no curse but I was still traumatized by everything Mama had done to me.
EPISODE 5(The End)
Four months after Mama moved out of our house I started feeling unusually tired and my period was late by two weeks.
I bought a pregnancy test from the pharmacy afraid to hope after two years of disappointment and countless negative results.
When I saw the two pink lines on the test I could not believe it and I took three more tests to confirm I was actually pregnant.
I called Chinedu at work crying with joy and told him we were finally going to have a baby after all this time.
We went to the hospital the next day and the doctor confirmed I was six weeks pregnant and everything looked healthy.
The doctor asked if we had made any major changes recently and I realized that the biggest change was removing Mama from our home.
I explained everything that had happened with the juju and the stress of living with someone who h@ted me and wanted me to fail.
The doctor said stress is one of the biggest factors that can prevent conception and that removing a major stressor often helps couples conceive naturally.
She told us that my body was probably so stressed from Mama’s presence and negativity that it was affecting my hormones and fertility.
Now that Mama was gone and I felt safe in my own home my body had relaxed enough to allow pregnancy to happen.
I realized that it was not juju that had been preventing my pregnancy but the constant stress of living with a woman who was literally trying to curse me.
Chinedu was overjoyed but worried about telling his mother because he knew she would try to take credit for the pregnancy.
I told him we should wait until I was further along before telling anyone including Mama because I did not want her negative energy around me.
Three months into my pregnancy when I was visibly showing we finally called Mama to share the news.
Her first response was see I told you my r!tuals would work and now you have a baby coming.
I was shocked and asked her what she meant because she had specifically told me the r!tuals were to close my womb and make me barren.
Mama completely changed her story and said no I did those r!tuals to remove spiritual blockages so you could conceive.
She claimed that the r!tuals with Baba Aladura were always meant to help me get pregnant and not to curse me.
I reminded her that she had literally said the words I want to seal her womb forever and I paid to close her fertility.
Mama insisted I had misunderstood her intentions and that everything she did was to help me become a mother.
She said the reason I got pregnant was because her sacrifices and r!tuals had finally broken through the ancestral curses on my Igbo bl00dline.
Chinedu told his mother to stop lying because we both remembered exactly what she had said and what she had intended.
Mama ignored him and said she wanted to move back into our house to help take care of me during the pregnancy.
I told her absolutely not and that she would never live in my house again after what she had done.
She said I was being ungrateful because her r!tuals were the reason I was pregnant and I owed her respect.
I explained that Baba Aladura had confessed to me that all his rituals were fake and that he had done nothing with my bl00d.
Mama refused to believe me and said Baba would never reveal his spiritual secrets to outsiders and that I was lying.
I told her that even if the r!tuals had been real they were meant to harm me not help me and I would never forget that.
Chinedu supported me and told his mother she needed to accept that she was not welcome in our home anymore.
Mama became angry and told family members that I was an ungrateful Igbo woman who refused to let her see her grandchild.
She spread stories in the family saying that she had done powerful r!tuals to help me conceive and now I was denying her access.
Some family members believed her version and called Chinedu saying he should force me to reconcile with his mother.
Chinedu stood firm and told them the truth about what Mama had done including collecting my used sanitary pads for juju.
Most of the family was horrified when they learned the truth but a few still believed Mama’s story that she was trying to help.
Seven months into my pregnancy I gave birth to a healthy baby girl and Chinedu and I were overwhelmed with happiness.
Mama showed up at the hospital uninvited demanding to see her granddaughter and claiming she had a right as the grandmother.
I told the nurses not to let her into my room and Chinedu went out to talk to her in the waiting area.
She told him that she had done everything for us and that the baby existed because of her sacrifices and spiritual interventions.
Chinedu showed her the video that Nkechi had recorded of Baba Aladura admitting that all his r!tuals were fake and he had sc@mmed her.
Mama watched the video and still insisted that Baba was lying to protect his spiritual secrets and that the r!tuals had worked.
She said the proof was that I had gotten pregnant exactly as she had intended and that I should be thanking her instead of banning her.
Chinedu told her that she could not see the baby until she apologized for what she had done and admitted the truth.
Mama refused to apologize and said she would never apologize to an Igbo woman for trying to protect her son.
She left the hospital angry and told everyone who would listen that we were keeping her away from her only grandchild out of spite.
Chinedu’s uncle Tunde who had always been kind to me spoke to Mama and told her she needed to accept responsibility for her actions.
Mama told Uncle Tunde that she had done nothing wrong and that modern young people did not understand traditional Yoruba ways.
One year after my daughter was born I was thriving as a mother and my marriage was stronger than ever.
Mama had never met her granddaughter and continued to live in Ibadan telling people that I had bewitched her son.
She claimed that her rituals had worked perfectly and that the baby was only conceived because of her spiritual intervention.
Some people in the village believed her story and said I was being cruel to keep a grandmother away from her grandchild.
But the people who knew the truth about what she had done understood why I could never allow her near my daughter.
I had learned that some people would rather believe a comfortable lie than accept an uncomfortable truth about themselves.
Mama had spent five hundred thousand naira on fake juju and months v!olating me in the most disturbing way possible.
Instead of apologizing she twisted the entire story to make herself the hero who had helped me conceive.
I realized that getting pregnant had nothing to do with juju or r!tuals and everything to do with removing toxic stress from my life.
The moment Mama left our house my body finally relaxed enough to allow conception to happen naturally.
Her presence had been po!soning my peace and affecting my health in ways I had not fully understood until she was gone.
I never spoke to Mama again and I raised my daughter to understand that family members who harm you do not deserve access to your life.
Chinedu supported my decision completely and said his loyalty was to his wife and child not to a mother who had tried to destroy our family.
Sometimes I thought about the metal box full of my used sanitary pads and felt sick remembering how violated I had been.
But then I looked at my beautiful daughter and realized that Mama’s ev!l intentions had failed completely.
She had tried to curse my womb but all she did was show me exactly who she was and give me the strength to remove her from my life.
In the end the greatest gift was not the pregnancy but the lesson that I deserved to be protected even if it meant cutting off family.
My daughter would grow up knowing that her mother had chosen peace over toxic relationships and that some battles are won by walking away.
THE END
