Home has doors and a workplace has other people. The journey between them has neither, and it is also the most predictable thing most of us do — the same route, the same hour, the same bus stop, five days a week.
That predictability is what makes journeys the point of exposure, and it is also the part that is easiest to change.
Whether you are actually being followed
Second-guessing this is exhausting, and most women in this situation swing between certainty and feeling foolish. A few things are worth knowing.
On foot, the test is not whether somebody is behind you. It is whether they are still behind you after you have changed something. Cross the road. Turn a corner you did not need to turn. Stop and look in a shop window. Turn back the way you came. One of those tells you what you need to know, and none of them looks like anything.
In traffic, look for a vehicle that stays with you through two or three turns, particularly turns that make no sense for an ordinary journey. Lagos traffic makes this harder than it sounds, because everybody is going the same way for miles.
And trust the pattern over the moment. Somebody who appears near your gate, then near your office, then near your church is not a coincidence, even if no single sighting was strange.
If you think you are being followed
- Do not go home. This is the whole rule and everything else supports it. Going home while being followed is how a new address is lost.
- Go somewhere public with staff and cameras. A bank, a filling station, a supermarket, a hotel lobby, a busy pharmacy. Somewhere with a door, a counter and a person behind it.
- Tell somebody there. Say plainly that you think you are being followed and ask to sit inside for a few minutes. People respond to that better than most women expect.
- Call somebody and stay on the phone. Say where you are out loud.
- Do not confront him. Not in the street, not from a car window, not to establish whether it is really him.
- Leave differently. A taxi from inside the building, a different exit, or wait for somebody to collect you.
- Write it down the same day. Date, time, place, vehicle, what happened. A pattern only becomes provable if it is recorded each time.
Making journeys less predictable
- Vary the time you leave, by fifteen or twenty minutes, rather than leaving at exactly the same moment every day.
- Have two or three routes and rotate them without a system anybody could work out.
- Change where you wait. A different bus stop, a different side of the road, a different junction for a keke.
- Avoid the last stretch being quiet and unlit. Where the whole route is fine except the final two hundred metres, that is the part to solve.
- Walk facing traffic where there is no pavement, and away from parked vehicles rather than between them.
- Keep one ear free. Both ears blocked removes the sense that warns you first.
- Tell one person your movements when something is unusual — where you are going and when you expect to be back.
Taxis, ride apps and okada
Ride-hailing has a specific advantage worth using: the journey is logged, the driver is identified, and the trip can be shared with somebody as it happens. That record is genuinely useful evidence if something goes wrong.
It also has a specific weakness, which is your saved home address. Do not save it. Do not be dropped at your gate — use a landmark, a junction, or a shop nearby and walk the rest, particularly if anybody else has ever had access to the account.
If you share an account with him, or he set it up, assume the address history is visible to him and open your own.
For okada and keke, agree the destination and the price before getting on, and name a landmark rather than a house. If somebody insists on a route you did not agree, that is a reason to get off in a busy place rather than continue politely.
Your own car
Doors locked when you get in, and get in without standing beside the vehicle looking at a phone. Check the back seat before you sit down. Keep more than a quarter of a tank, because running out of fuel decides where you have to stop.
Park where you will be leaving in the light rather than where it was convenient to arrive. Reverse into a space where you can, so leaving is one movement.
If a vehicle is behind you and you are unsure, drive to a filling station or a police station rather than home, and stay in the car with the doors locked while you call somebody.
And read the article about trackers, because a car can lead somebody to you without anybody following it at all.
At either end of the journey
The two most exposed moments are leaving a building and arriving at one, because both are predictable to the minute.
At work, ask to be walked out at the end of the day, or leave with a colleague. Ask reception never to confirm your movements to a caller. If your shift ends in the dark, ask whether it can be changed — most employers will, and what an employer can do is written for them.
At home, have the key or the gate remote in your hand before you arrive rather than searching for it at the door. If something looks wrong — a gate open that should be shut, a vehicle you recognise, a light on — do not go in. Go somewhere public and call somebody.
School runs
The school is the most predictable location in your week and the one he is most likely to use, because he knows the time exactly and has a reason to be there.
Give the school written instructions about who may collect the children, ask them to call you if anybody else arrives, and vary where you wait. If there is a protection order, give the school a copy rather than describing it. The wider plan for children covers the rest.
Reporting it
Following somebody, waiting outside their home or workplace and repeatedly turning up where they are is stalking, and it is covered by Nigerian law rather than being a matter for the family.
The difficulty is that each single event sounds trivial when described. He was at the market. He was outside the school. That is why the written record matters so much here: fourteen entries over two months is a different thing entirely from one complaint. What to do about persistent contact goes through the evidence and the options.
Questions people ask
How can I tell if I am really being followed?
Change something and see whether they change with you. Cross the road, turn an unnecessary corner, stop at a window, or double back. In traffic, watch for a vehicle that stays with you through turns that make no sense.
What should I do first if I am sure?
Do not go home. Go somewhere public with staff and cameras, tell someone there, and call somebody while you wait. Leaving a different way afterwards matters as much as getting inside.
Should I confront him?
No. Not in the street, not from a car, and not to check whether it is really him. There is nothing to gain and the situation is at its least controlled.
Are ride apps safer?
They have a real advantage: the trip is logged, the driver identified, and it can be shared live. Just do not save your home address and do not be dropped at your gate.
Each incident sounds so small. Is it worth reporting?
Yes, and the record is what makes it work. One complaint about somebody being at the market sounds trivial. Fourteen dated entries over two months is a pattern, and that is what a court responds to.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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