Widow Accused of Witchcraft by In-Laws After Husband’s Death

When Arinola’s husband died of lung cancer just two weeks after she gave birth to their son, she expected his family to support her through her grief. Instead, they accused her of witchcraft, claimed her son was not her husband’s child, and stripped their home of everything they owned. This is Arinola’s story, as told to Sofiyah.

A Marriage Marred by Family Coldness

Arinola’s husband, Olu*, was an orphan. As the first son and first grandchild in both of his parents’ families, he had to shoulder many familial responsibilities before he even turned eighteen. Because of this, everyone felt entitled to him, his money, and his time—and that, Arinola believes, was one reason his family began to detest her even before she married him.

As Olu’s girlfriend, she faced constant passive-aggressiveness from his family, especially his siblings. From the moment he introduced her, she could feel the coldness radiating from them. They acted as if she were dirt under their shoes, often mispronouncing her name and occasionally making snide jokes about her being a mere HnD holder. Around Olu, they were respectful, but when he was out of sight, they would make subtle mockery until she was near tears.

She felt she could not tell Olu because he loved his siblings very much. When she told her mother, she said that was how her father’s siblings had acted toward her before, but now they liked her, and she advised Arinola to give them time to get used to her. Arinola listened and, even in the face of all the meanness, did her best to be nice to his family. That is something she regrets to this day.

A Warning She Didn’t Heed

The day after Olu proposed, Arinola’s eldest sister, Lola*, sat her down in their shared room and told her to at least get acclimatised to the ways of his household for a year before deciding to get pregnant, because she might never know what could happen. Arinola wishes she had listened instead of getting pregnant three months into their marriage. If she had, maybe Olu’s sudden cancer diagnosis would not have completely changed her life as it did.

It was lung cancer. Olu had been experiencing worrying symptoms, such as blood-streaked coughs. Concerned, Arinola told him to go to the hospital because she thought it would be something curable. But he came home and informed her that he had been diagnosed with second-stage lung cancer. She remembers being six months pregnant and going mute for an hour after he told her. She did not want to cry because he was crying, and even though it seemed selfish, all she could think about was the fate of their child and herself.

She had believed that marrying Olu would soften his family’s hearts toward her, but it did not work that way. They still hated her, and a part of her already predicted the amount of suffering she would endure if Olu’s condition got worse.

Drowning in Medical Bills and Family Betrayal

From the day they learned of his diagnosis, Arinola’s perfectly normal life capsized. Suddenly, she was drowning. His condition worsened, and he had to be at the hospital all the time. All their savings and any little money they had went into his treatments. She became someone who had to beg people for money because Olu’s family, who should have been there for him, kept lying to her, saying they had no money to give. They were completely useless and barely visited the hospital.

She thanks God for the people at Olu’s workplace and her own family, who kept giving her the money the hospital requested; otherwise, she would have been completely helpless. It is a shame that all the money they put into ensuring Olu would survive was useless, because just two weeks after she gave birth to their son, Olu died, and her journey into hell began.

Accusations of Witchcraft and a Fight for Her Son

It was as if Olu’s family had been waiting for their son to die so they could finally express their hatred toward Arinola. Her husband’s body was not even cold in the ground; she was still in post-birth pains and grieving the love of her life, who could barely even hold his child before he died. She thought she would be allowed at least two months before family trouble entered the mix, but they did not even give her that grace.

After Olu’s burial, his family started accusing her of the most ridiculous things. At first, it was killing her husband, saying that he was completely healthy before she stepped into his life, and how did his condition worsen so quickly? Somehow, they accused her of witchcraft. She was in the throes of postpartum depression and yet had to face all those accusations. At the time, her siblings, who would have faced her in-laws head-on, had already relocated abroad, and her parents were honestly just concerned with keeping her and her child alive.

Every day she woke up, there was always someone from Olu’s family in the house. She did not even know they had somehow found a way to duplicate their house keys so they could enter whenever they wanted. They expected her, in her state, to cater to them, and when her mother gently reminded them that she was a new mother who had just lost her husband, they would make it about themselves and ask if they also had not lost someone.

Their mistreatment got worse, and the rumours went from Arinola killing her husband with witchcraft to her son not being Olu’s child because, in their words, he did not look like him. They called family meetings on her head and kept telling her to confess to it. She does not remember a lot of what happened in the months after her husband’s death because she was completely numb to everything. She could barely give her son the attention he deserved in those months, so when they called family meetings, she would just keep quiet and let her mother lead.

Every day it was always a new thing with them, but Arinola and her mother knew they were trying to find something to pin on her because they wanted to take Olu’s properties. She knows they were particularly resentful that Olu and she had a large amount of money saved for their son’s upkeep, and that she was the only one who could access it. She understands that some families get cruel and greedy after the death of a family member, but the fact that they could not hide it at all? It felt like they were waiting for him to die so they could take all his things and deny her son and her.

A Brief Respite and a Devastating Discovery

The witch hunt continued, and as everything became overwhelming, Arinola decided to visit her aunt, who lived two states away. That was the first time since her husband died that she had anything close to peace, and it was only when she experienced that peace that she allowed herself to mourn her husband. It was genuinely cathartic, and after crying all the tears she could, she reached a strange sense of acceptance.

Maybe that was why, when she got back home a week later to find out that Olu’s family had raided the entire house in her absence, she was not too surprised or angry. They took everything down to the generator, and the only things left in the house were her and her child’s belongings. She had already made peace with the fact that they were horrible human beings, and she decided in that moment that people who were capable of causing her more pain when she was already in a dark place did not deserve any attention in her mind.

Starting Over Far from Home

Arinola moved back to her parents’ house, and it was there that she finally had the time to care for her son the way he deserved. She deleted all her in-laws’ contact numbers and focused on healing and finding a job that would sustain her and her child.

A year into living with her parents, her brother, who had already settled in the United Kingdom, suggested that she and her son come live with him, and he even offered to cover all the bills. She agreed immediately because, frankly, being in Nigeria constantly reminded her of all the what-could-have-beens with Olu. She needed a fresh start, so she agreed to join him, and in four or five months, she and her son said goodbye to Nigeria.

It has been about eight years since she left the country, and around her fourth year in the UK, her in-laws somehow found her contact number and have been harassing her. They either call to beg for money (which is ridiculous because what money did they put in her hands?) or tell her that they want to see their brother’s son. When she blocked them, they began to harass her parents and even her siblings. It was really pathetic to see them do that, and she was just glad she was no longer in the country, because she knows they are capable of finding her at her house.

To Arinola, her in-laws belong to her past, and even though they still occasionally find a way to reach her, she is determined to forget them and the pain they caused her.