When the mothers decide to kill a man, nothing can stop them. His wife, despite her crying and quaking, will feed him the powder. His family will bury him with fanfare, and his children will forget him. They will get an education and travel the world and build their lives without any thought of him. Even the one he touched. Especially the one he touched. The mothers will see to it. 

When the mothers first gathered in that dark house in Ikeja, they did not meet to kill. They wanted to save girls. In those early months, they only prescribed a weakening drug for the offending man, but it was not enough. Even in their bedridden state, men often found a way to do the abominable. A quick tap on the bum or a lingering brush of the shoulders or a threatening look or a command given to another man or a straying hand up the thighs. If the hand could still move, it would find its way to the wrong places. Only death could stop such a hand. Now, years after that first meeting, the mothers do not hesitate to kill. Now, newspapers are filled with reports of men dying of unknown causes. And the mothers are growing in number. Every day a new woman came with the same story: a man had put his hands where they shouldn’t go. It was nothing new or inventive. It was so common; it could have been the same man going around town, assaulting young girls. 

The mothers saved all the women that came to them. Fifty years and not one woman or child had slipped through their hands. Every child was rescued. Every erring man paid for his sins. No matter how affluent or how beloved the man, he was not above the law of the mothers and never out of their reach. But Aisha did not know all this when she went to them.  

Aisha first heard about the mothers from her own mother on her wedding day. While the men ate kola and drank palm wine in her late father’s living room, Aisha’s mother called her to a corner of the kitchen.   

‘Call this number when you cannot take it anymore’, she said as she pressed a piece of brown paper into Aisha’s bosom. 

‘Who owns the number?’ Aisha pulled the folded paper out of her bra. ‘And what will I tire of?’ 

‘There are things that happen in marriage—’ her mother paused as one of the older aunties passed. ‘There are things that can make one tired in marriage’, she continued. ‘Things that you can’t really say.’ She folded the paper back into Aisha’s bra. ‘Are you getting me?’ 

‘I don’t know, màámí; what things?’  

‘Why are you two wasting time here?’ The older auntie interrupted them. ‘Here.’ She handed Aisha a tray of food. ‘Take this to the parlour for the men.’ Then she turned to Aisha’s mother. ‘Let’s go and see to the food. I know it’s not easy, more so because she is the only one, but that’s why she needs to go now. Soon she will have babies that will keep you busy.’ 

Aisha’s mother blinked back her tears and walked out of the kitchen.  

Twelve years was all it took for Aisha to work up enough anger to call the number. Twelve years and the death in her daughter’s eyes. For 12 years she bore her husband’s mistreatment. The beatings, the insults, the burdensome touch in the night. She bore his contempt as her fate and would have endured till death if he hadn’t touched Mariam. 

Mariam was the noor of her eyes. Her gift from God after five miscarriages. With skin as dark as adin and that striking gap teeth, Mariam was her mother’s spitting image. And at six years of age, Mariam was Aisha’s biggest joy. 

Aisha returned from the market that Tuesday evening and found her daughter sitting on the steps leading into the house, looking out into the near dusk. There was no welcome squeal, no news of what trouble her brother had got up to, no story about what she had learnt or what her friends did at school. She just sat there in her purple uniform, staring. At first Aisha thought the child was sleeping with her eyes open, so she tapped her gently. Then she pulled her ear saying, ‘How can one child sleep so much?’  

Then she shook her and stooped down to look at her daughter. That’s when she saw the blank stare glazed over unshed tears. She was stunned. The hurt pooled in those eyes was nothing she had ever imagined possible in eyes usually filled with mischief.  

‘Ta ló pa mí l’ọ́mọ?’ Aisha asked no one in particular. ‘Who touched my daughter? Mariam, who beat you? What happened? Talk to me, Àbẹ̀bí; who beat you? Was it Uncle Ayinde? Was it Aunty Moses? Who beat you?’ She implored and begged but Mariam remained silent. When it became obvious she wouldn’t get an answer out of the girl, she went in search of answers elsewhere. 

Her younger son, Mahmood was playing with his toys in the parlour. 

‘Did anybody beat your sister?’ she asked. 

‘No!’ The boy shook his head emphatically. 

‘What happened at school?’ 

‘Nothing.’ He shook his head again, smiling. 

She clicked her tongue and went in search of her husband. 

She found him behind the house, smiling softly with his eyes closed, two empty bottles of beer on the floor beside him. She took a deep breath and steadied herself before asking, ‘Do you know what happened to Mariam?’ 

Abubakar cracked one eye open, took one look at his wife and returned to his thoughts. 

‘Do you know what happened to my daughter?’ She asked again. 

Abubakar sighed. ‘I don’t know. Don’t disturb my peace this evening.’ 

‘She is not herself; she is just sitting there doing nothing.’ 

‘Then put her to work. If her idleness is disturbing you, give her something to do.’ 

Aisha chose her next words carefully. ‘It’s not that. She looks ill, like somebody beat her.’ 

‘Then ask her.’ 

‘She won’t say anything. She’s just sitting there, looking.’ 

Abubakar sat up in his chair, and his heavy frame rolled lazily. ‘You know how children are; she probably got punished in school and is still sulking.’ 

‘But there’s something about her eyes that’s different.’ 

‘Woman! Leave me alone. Do not disturb my peace.’ 

Beneath his threatening, Aisha heard a certain quiet that scared her. It was a Tuesday evening, yet Abubakar made no mention of work or traffic or any of the other topics of his daily rants. And he was tying a wrapper which could only mean he’d just had sex. An unsettling suspicion grew in her mind.  

‘How was work today?’ she asked. 

‘Woman do not trouble me’, he replied without as much as a glance.  

Her heart knocked about wildly in its cage. 

‘Did you touch her?’ She asked, her voice trembling. 

He was silent for such a long time, she thought he hadn’t heard, and she was grateful. Then he answered, ‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Did you touch my child?’ 

‘You are a very foolish idiot’, he replied at once. ‘My child this, my child that, as if she’s not my child too.’  

Aisha suddenly grew cold. That was all the confirmation she needed. After 12 years of marriage, she knew her husband enough to know when he was lying.  

‘You touched my child?’ Her voice had developed a low bass. 

‘Is it me you’re talking to like that?’ 

Aisha had a split second to decide. She heard the threat in his voice and knew what was next. But she couldn’t back down, not after what she’d seen in her baby’s eyes. 

‘You touched my child’, she repeated with tears in her eyes. 

Abubakar jumped out of his seat with an agility that spelled doom. ‘You will not disrespect me in my house, you, this mad woman.’ 

‘I only asked a question.’ Aisha stepped back but it was too late. The slap blinded her momentarily. She staggered and landed in the vegetable garden. 

‘I will teach you sense today.’ Abubakar continued pummelling her. ‘The sense your mother couldn’t teach you, I will teach you.’ 

He grabbed a handful of her buba and dragged her into the house. He threw her onto the bed, but he didn’t have to; she would have got in the bed if he’d asked. He removed his wrapper, and she unclothed herself too with steady, aching hands.  

The assault went on for so long, Aisha slipped in and out of consciousness. She did not move, did not cry for help. She just lay there worrying if Mahmood could hear them from the parlour.  

When he was done, Abubakar tied his wrapper and went back to his spot behind the house. 

Aisha woke up in heaven. Or so she thought. Mariam was a baby again, in her arms, filling her nostrils with the scent of baby oil. She reached out to touch that head full of soft hair and touched, instead, greasy cornrows. She opened her eyes and saw Mariam cuddled against her. 

‘My child’, she croaked. 

Everything hurt. Her throat, her sides, her insides. But what hurt the most was her heart. Her heart ached so much she thought it would burst open, and pain, ripe and red, would come pouring out. She pulled the child close and winced.  

‘Is your body paining you, Mummy? My body is paining me too, down there.’ 

‘Did daddy beat you?’  

‘No. I was a good girl. He said I should lie down and be a good girl, so I did, but it’s paining me, Mummy. It’s paining me.’  

Aisha bit down on her bottom lip until it bled. She rolled onto her side and draped a heavy leg over her daughter. 

‘It’s okay my sweet, it’s okay. I’m here now; it’s okay.’ 

That was the moment Aisha decided she’d had enough. That was the moment she decided Abu would have to cut through her dead body before he could hurt her baby again. 

* 

The phone number was in the same spot it had been for 12 years, folded neatly into the chest of that aṣọ òfì that Aisha didn’t bother to wash after the wedding. She blew away at the dust gathered on the brown paper and placed it carefully inside her purse before leaving for her shop. 

The voice that answered the call was strong, assured, unlike Aisha’s. ‘Talk to me’, the voice said. 

‘Is this — who is this please?’ 

‘Tell me why you called.’ 

‘I don’t know.’ Aisha’s voice shook. ‘Sorry, wrong number.’ Aisha made to end the call. 

‘Wait. What’s your name?’ The question stopped Aisha’s quaking. 

‘Aisha.’ 

‘Aisha, where are you?’ 

‘My shop.’ 

‘Is there someone there with you?’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Good. Tell me what’s going on. Why did you call?’ 

‘Who are you, please?’ 

‘My name is Memunat. You can tell me anything.’ 

Aisha sighed. 

‘Why don’t you start by telling me how you got this number.’ 

‘Màámí said I should call when I am tired.’ 

‘What are you tired of Aisha?’ 

‘Abubakar.’ She covered her mouth as she said the name. 

‘What has Abubakar done?’ The voice continued in the same assured tone. 

Aisha dropped to her knees in the corner of her shop where she stood. Her screams were silent and forceful. She banged her palms on the floor screaming screaming screaming. 

‘He touched my baby’, she said finally, after minutes had passed. 

‘Tell me everything’, Memunat said and went completely silent. Not even her breathing could be heard. She stayed quiet through Aisha’s narration of her wedding to Abu, the bitterness that was the early years of their marriage. The miscarriages in those early days and the trouble that followed. The year Mariam came into her life, then the year she had Mahmood. She told everything to Memunat, who listened quietly and patiently. 

‘What do you want?’ Memunat asked when Aisha stopped. 

‘I want him to stop. I’m tired.’ 

‘You know he won’t stop; you have to stop him.’ 

Aisha considered her options. There was no way she’d get him to stop, but she could run away or talk to his family members again. Both drastic measures, but she was ready to do anything for her daughter. 

‘I can talk to his family to help me talk to him’, she said. 

‘And you think that will work?’ 

Aisha paused. The first time Abubakar hit her, she told his mother, and the only thing she got was advice on how to keep him happy. The second time, five months into the marriage, she spent a whole day scrubbing and scrubbing the box that housed her old clothes, contemplating whether to take out the paper or go to her mother-in-law. In the end, she went to her mother-in-law who told her in plain terms to suck it up. She did not imagine the response would be the same if she told the woman what he did to Mariam. 

‘They can talk to him’, she said. 

‘Do you think that will stop him?’ Memunat asked again. 

‘They can talk to him’, she repeated. 

‘Do you think that will stop him?’ 

‘What will you have me do? Màámí said I should call you, and I’ve called. What should I do?’ 

‘Where exactly do you live?’ Memunat asked. 

‘Onipanu’, Aisha replied. 

Memunat went silent again and Aisha waited. 

‘Somebody will meet you behind the Conoil filling station in Onipanu bus stop this evening at 6pm. She will be at the toilet door behind the filling station. She will give you the remedy and instructions on how to use it.’ 

‘And it will make him stop?’ 

‘It will.’ 

‘Thank you so much, my sister. God will bless you for me. Alhamdulillah. Ọlọ́run á maa gbe yín ga. You will not enter the lion’s den. God will give you everything your heart desires.’ 

‘Make sure you are there at 6pm, and use the remedy exactly as she says.’ 

* 

Aisha stared at the powder before her, trying to fathom its effect. The woman who gave it to her had given her strict instructions for its use. Between that and the powder’s lack of odour, she had an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach, worse than the way she felt when she entered her father’s living room 12 years ago and saw 10 men gathered. Worse than how she felt on entering Abu’s two-bedroom apartment in Onipanu for the first time. For a moment she considered that the powder could kill Abu and recoiled from the table in shock. When she regained herself, she simply tied it into the edge of her wrapper, determined to throw it in the dump far away from her house. 

After a dinner of porridge beans and garri, Aisha left home to get rid of the powder. A few minutes into her walk, her phone rang. It was a private number. 

‘Who is this?’ she asked on picking the call. 

‘It’s me, Memunat.’ 

‘Why did you use private number? You scared me.’ 

‘Scared, how?’ 

‘I don’t know. It was just a feeling.’ 

‘Hmm. Have you used it?’ 

Aisha paused and felt the barely existent bulge in her wrapper. 

‘I don’t think I can use it.’ 

‘You have to’, Memunat replied without skipping a beat. 

‘What does this powder do? Tell me openly.’ 

‘Do you want to save your daughter and yourself?’ 

‘Can you imagine what will happen to your daughter if she grows up like this?’ She pressed further. 

‘What if he dies?’ 

‘And so?’ Memunat quipped. ‘What if he dies? He won’t be the first man, nor will he be the last to die.’ 

‘Ah! You are a wicked woman.’ 

‘And you are a weak woman. Will you wait until he gets her pregnant? Do you want to wait and see if you and your daughter will be pregnant at the same time for the same man?’ 

‘Shut up’, Aisha said. 

‘No. You have to hear it. Because it’s your husband, you dare hesitate. Is that even a husband?’ Memunat poked. ‘A man that hits you and rapes little girls. Is that who you are protecting? Shame on you.’ 

‘You don’t know me.’ 

‘I know you will choose a rapist over your own daughter. You disgust me.’ 

‘Shut up! Shut up, and don’t ever call my line again. You and your stupid powder.’  

Aisha was so upset she went straight to the police station, fuming. ‘I will show her that I can do the right thing for my daughter’, she muttered as she walked. ‘Evil witch of a woman. I will show her. In fact, let me delete her phone number.’ 

She arrived at the police station in no time. 

‘Please I want to see you, officer.’ She addressed the female officer at the counter. 

‘You are seeing me, madam’, the officer quipped. 

‘In private please.’ 

The officer stopped filing her nails long enough to take a long look at Aisha. She took in the clumsy head tie, the mismatched buba and wrapper, the worn flip flops, the hands twiddling by her sides. Timewaster, the officer thought.  

‘This is as private as it gets.’ She returned to filing her nails. 

‘Please officer, it is a private matter.’ 

‘See me see wahala. Do you have matter for police or not?’ 

The second police officer at the counter looked at her and scoffed. ‘You better say what you came here to say, or get out.’ He pointed his baton at the door behind her.  

Aisha took a step back. She untied and retied her wrapper. ‘My husband beats me’, she said. 

‘This is a family matter na. What do you want police to do now? You want us to arrest him?’ the second officer asked as he swung his baton around idly.  

‘I don’t know how you can help but maybe if you invite him.’ 

‘Walahi!’ He exclaimed. ’This woman wan use us do family counselling. Wetin you dey do wey he dey beat you? You know say women una get evil mouth.’ 

‘Who has evil mouth?’ The female officer stopped filing her nails. ‘Salisu, who you dey follow talk?’ 

‘I lie? Ta ta ta na so una dey always fire like typewriter. Una mouth no dey ever rest.’ 

‘It’s your mother that has evil mouth. Idiot!’ 

‘See wetin I dey talk now. You see?’ He turned his baton once again to Aisha as if expecting an answer.  

‘What if he slept with our daughter?’ 

The police officers turned to her in unison. ‘Ehn?’ 

‘What if he slept with our daughter; will you invite him then?’ 

‘You mean he sleep with her on the same bed, or he sleep with her as in sleep with her?’ Salisu asked. 

‘You no get sense.’ The female officer eyed Salisu. ‘Madam.’ She addressed Aisha. ‘This thing you have just said is a serious matter. Are you sure?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘How you take know?’ Salisu asked. 

Aisha closed her eyes and went back to that painful evening when she discovered. 

‘My daughter told me.’ 

‘Do you have evidence? Did you catch him doing it? Or take her to the hospital for tests?’ 

‘No.’ Aisha bit her lip. 

‘I can’t lie to you madam; the case will be difficult to build.’ 

‘How you take know sef? You sure say your pikin no dey lie?’  

‘Salisu, shut up. Shut up.’ She returned to Aisha. ‘Madam, without evidence there’s nothing we can do. Maybe you should ask your family to intervene.’ 

‘You fit even send the child make she go live with your sister. You know as children of nowadays be. E fit be her wey dey cut eye for your husband.’ 

‘Don’t mind my colleague. He’s a fool but he’s right. Maybe you should send your daughter to live elsewhere ehn? To avoid problems in your home.’ 

Aisha left the police station without as much as a goodbye. The officers called after her twice before resuming their business. She walked down Ikorodu road, from Onipanu to Fadeyi. Her bad knee wobbled as she walked, but she paid no mind to it, only stopping in front of the refuse dump at Fadeyi. She untied the powder from her wrapper, took a pinch and watched it float away in the flickering light. Weightless, powerless like herself. She retied the powder into her wrapper, wiped her tears and turned back home.  

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. The mothers did not call Aisha, and Aisha did not call the mothers. She kept Mariam safe by herself. At least she thought so. She left home in the morning with her children and made them come to her shop after school. It was under control for exactly three months and one week.  

Aisha returned to her shop from a routine visit to her best friend’s shop one late evening to find that Abu had come to take the children home. She closed the shop immediately and went home.  

Mariam was on the dirt road by the house, heaping dirt on herself. Mahmood was there too, digging his tiny fingers into the sand and throwing dirt on his sister.  

‘What silly game are you two playing? Look how dirty you are torí Ọlọ́run! Mariamo, get up from there! Where is your father?’ She tried pulling her daughter up, but Mariam sank her weight into the ground. 

‘Get up now before I slap you.’ 

‘No’, Mariam wailed. ‘I want to die; let me die.’ 

Something about her tone stopped Aisha dead. She stooped close to Mariam and whispered, ‘Did your father touch you again?’ 

Mariam stopped her squirming long enough to nod, but Aisha did not need her to confirm what she already knew. She sat in the dirt beside her daughter and wept.  

* 

The line barely rang once before that strong, assured voice answered. ‘Talk to me.’ 

‘Memunat?’ 

‘Speaking.’  

‘Will the powder still work now?’ 

‘It will.’  

‘Even after all this time?’  

‘How is she?’  

Aisha uttered a groan that reverberated through the walls of the darkened shop.  

Down the line, Memunat heard everything unsaid in that groan and clamped down on her tongue until she drew blood.  

Silence loomed large in that dark shop, and Aisha went straight into the centre of it. When she came out on the other side, her mind was made.  

‘I will do it. I will use the powder’, she said finally. 

‘Good. Now work with me. Does your husband have any lands or cars or any valuable properties?’ 

‘He has one old car’, Aisha replied.  

‘Do you know where he keeps the car documents?’  

‘Yes’, she answered again.  

‘Tomorrow morning you will bring those documents to the place where you collected the powder.’  

‘What do you want with the car?’  

‘I will drive it to my village and show my village chiefs.’  

‘Memunat?’  

‘It’s standard procedure. We need to ensure your in-laws cannot take everything from you after this is done. Or that you at least have legs to stand in court.’ 

A wave of doubt came over Aisha at the careful selection of words. ‘I’m not sure I can do this.’ 

‘You can and you will’ was Memunat’s fast reply. ‘If you don’t, your daughter will suffer for it. She will grow up hating you. Or worse.’ The incompleteness of the sentence hung in the air between them, an unspoken conclusion like the effect of the powder. 

Aisha snapped her fingers together. ‘God forbid! God forbid!’  

Memunat briefly remembered her Fatimat, and a single sob escaped her.  

‘Listen to me.’ Memunat’s voice trembled. ‘You have to get your child away from that man. He will not stop as long as he has access to her. His life is a threat to hers. Do you hear me? You have to choose, and you have to choose fast.’ 

Aisha heard the plea in Memunat’s voice. She heard the urgency too, and a pang of grief shot through her. In that moment she hated her life so much. Hated it more than she does whenever Abu has his way with her. Hated it more than she did when her mother-in-law taunted her at the birth of a common girl after five miscarriages. She hated it so much she might have even taken the powder and put herself out of her misery, but she knew that would only seal Mariam’s fate.  

Instead, she stilled her trembling and said, ‘It will be done.’ 

The following day was a good day as any to kill a man. The air was still but not the birds. They took up the guava tree outside the house, screeching and cawing like an ensemble gone mad.  

Aisha woke up with a scream in her head. She looked at her snoring husband, at the gentle heave of his chest, and was overcome with fear. She slid back under her cover-cloth and lay there for what seemed like an eternity, shivering, until the sound of running water filled the room. She sat up and listened as Mariam bathed her brother in the family bathroom. She looked down at her sleeping husband again, and hatred welled up inside her. Suddenly it was not enough to use the powder. She wanted to rip the hairs off his jaw and watch him bleed from all the pores. All those years she spent suffering at Abu’s hands, getting dragged on the floor, hit against the wall, slapped, kicked, punched, thrown on the bed, bleeding and bruised. and still still still that wasn’t enough for him. 

A single teardrop rolled down her face. She looked down at the gentle heaving one more time before getting out of bed. 

In the kitchen Aisha set out making beans for breakfast. It was Mariam’s best food. As she bleached the oil and fried the onions, she imagined it was Abu’s fingers diced and burning in hell. The hate she felt was strong, and she held onto it for dear life; she knew she would need it to do what she had to do. When the food was done, she packed her children’s lunch and sent them off to school. 

With only herself and Abu in the house, she proceeded to dish Abu’s food into a warmer and mix the powder into the food. Then she waited for the customary throat clearing that signalled Abu’s awakening. She didn’t have to wait long. Abu dragged himself to the parlour soon after the children left for school. 

‘Where is my food, woman?’ 

‘Won’t you bathe first?’ she called from the kitchen. 

‘Are you the one that will tell me when to eat my food? You are growing wings in this house, and I will clip them for you’, he growled at her. 

‘I’m sorry.’ 

She served his food and retreated to the kitchen, pensive. Her thoughts raced in all directions. How to get the car ownership papers, if Mariam will ever forget what her father did to her, what his family will do when they hear about his death, if they will know it was her, if she can live with the guilt, if the powder will work. With all these thoughts running around her head, she did not hear Abu come in. 

He rapped her head. ‘I’ve been calling you since. Are you deaf?’ 

‘Sorry, I–I was just thinking about the shop. The things I have to buy for the shop.’ 

He sucked his teeth. ‘You call that a business? Something that has not brought one naira to this house before.’ He raised a threatening hand. ‘If I slap you. Abeg boil water for my bath, and stop being useless. Unlike you, I have a job that brings money to this house, so I cannot stand around and be lazy.’ 

He stormed out of the kitchen, leaving a less-than-sorry Aisha. 

When she boiled the water for his bath, she added a teaspoon of dried pepper. 

* 

The illness started soon after. Nobody knew the moment when it started. Nobody even noticed it until Abu collapsed on the toilet floor, passing blood from his mouth and anus. Perhaps if he had paid attention, he would have noticed the swelling in his stomach getting bigger over the course of two weeks. Perhaps he would have noticed his growing difficulty passing stools, but he wasn’t the kind of man to notice such bodily functions as they held no promise of pleasure. He only noticed it that fateful Tuesday evening after he had sat in the toilet for over 10 minutes without any success. He also noticed the gnawing pain in his stomach but took it as encouragement to keep straining. The more he strained, the worse it got, but he again took the pain as progress, foolish man that he was. The final wave of pain hit him like a gut punch, obliterating whatever sense of decency he had left; he screamed out in pain, and blood poured out his mouth. Mahmood found him minutes later lying in a pool of blood. He was pronounced dead of unknown causes one hour later at the hospital.  

Aisha heard those words with trepidation. The freedom she had dreamt of all her life was finally within reach. Her children, some money to her name, freedom from marriage or the expectation of it, all hers from the moment the doctor made that proclamation, died of unknown causes. Her joy was such that she feared it would overwhelm her if she even dared consider it. The fear that had plagued her since she first dug out the piece of paper found no space in that humid hospital waiting room. Only joy, spirals and spirals of it washing over her. 

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2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist

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