Lady Koi Koi: The Red-Heeled Ghost of Nigeria

Nov 9

Throughout the boarding schools in Nigeria, Ghana, and parts of South Africa, students fear the ghost of a vengeful spirit known for the sounds her red heels make. Late at night if they hear the telltale sounds of her heels walking down the hall, they know Lady Koi Koi is out looking for new victims.

The Legend of Lady Koi Koi

In the mid-20th century, a boarding school of teens in Nigeria welcomed a new teacher who was said to be so beautiful, many of her colleagues tripped over themselves just to talk with her. After some time, her students discovered the real dark monster she kept hidden from her co-workers.

Behind the closed doors of a classroom, the teacher was violent and vicious. She physically struck the children for each and every mistake, demeaned them, and often look for new ways to inflict pain on them.

The students feared her, and the few who attempted to tell the headmaster or other teachers of her actions, were ignored. Perhaps they didn’t want to believe the teens or maybe they didn’t want to believe a woman so beautiful could be so vile.

As it was a boarding school, the children often hid away in their rooms listening for the sounds of the teacher’s red heels striking the floor. It was a distinctive “koi koi koi koi” sound that alerted them she was nearby. They began calling her “Lady Koi Koi” and used it as a warning system. They knew not to leave their rooms until the ‘koi koi’ of her heels had passed.

The Last Straw

One day after Lady Koi Koi gave a student a devastating beating that sent them to the hospital, the rest immediately ran to the headmaster to complain. Unfortunately, the infatuated headmaster ignored the students and believed it was all an accident.

The students had enough and they decided to take things into their own hands. That night they waited for Lady Koi Koi to leave the building and attacked. One stuffed her mouth with a cloth to prevent her from screaming and another put a sack over her body. The students beat her with anything they could find and before long Lady Koi Koi stopped struggling.

Lady Koi Koi was dead.

Lady Koi Koi Returns

Realizing what they had done, the students dumped her body just outside the gates, hoping the attack would be blamed on a burglar. As the days went on, the students thought they were in the clear, the attack had indeed been blamed on a stranger and the replacement teacher treated the students with love and care.

But just a few weeks after the attack, one of the students thought he heard the distinctive sounds of Lady Koi Koi’s heels. Believing it was just his guilt, he ignored it and forced himself to sleep. The next morning he awoke to find one of his classmates missing.

Over the course of the next month, one by one, each of his classmates who participated in the attack disappeared. Each time he swore he heard Lady Koi Koi’s heels walking the halls in the dead of night. One student even claimed to have seen her heels in the hall but they disappeared when they went to look.

Knowing Lady Koi Koi was coming for him, the last student left admitted to the headmaster and others what they had done but no one believed him. He begged the rest of the students for help from the spirit but, since they couldn’t hear the ‘koi koi’ sounds echoing in the halls on any of the prior nights, they didn’t believe him.

As night fell the student barricaded himself in his room hoping to survive. Hours later his screams echoed throughout the halls. His classmates were too scared to go out and save him. The following day his body was found twisted and beaten in the same place where Lady Koi Koi had been found.

The Legend Spreads

Unlike the prior disappearances, this time the students knew it was Lady Koi Koi. Each student was questioned and each told the same story. Just before hearing the student’s screams, all ambient sounds in the school evaporated and the air became still. Each and every student heard “koi koi koi koi” echoing in the hall as if it was the only sound to ever exist.

Their hearts raced as they held their breaths and then; screaming. The shrieks of terror went on for only a few moments and then they were gone. Two students claimed to have peeked out of their doors but both saw two very different things.

One saw Lady Koi Koi’s heels moving on their own, they clicked down the hall and vanished just as the screams stopped. The other student saw Lady Koi Koi except she was no longer beautiful. Her face was distorted and bloody and she seemed to growl as she walked. Some believed this was a result of the beating while others knew it was the true face of the monster she was inside.

Following the interviews, the school closed down and the students were sent to other boarding schools. But these students spread the story of Lady Koi Koi and soon there were reports of that distinctive “koi koi koi koi” sound in dozens of schools.

Some say she wanders the halls looking for any child so she can continue beating and torturing children as she had done in life.

Other Versions

Unsurprisingly there are a bunch of different variations to the story. The above legend is an amalgamation of the most common legends involving Lady Koi Koi that I could find. As there are plenty of other versions, I’ll list the most common versions:

Madam Koi Koi

In this version, Lady Koi Koi is known as Madam Koi Koi and while she was physically abusive towards her students, the others at the school weren’t as infatuated with her. One day she struck a young girl in the face and damaged her ear. Depending on the version, she ruptures her eardrum or accidentally cuts it.

Unfortunately for Madam Koi Koi, the girl was the daughter of a wealthy donor to the school and she was immediately fired. Madam Koi Koi angrily packed her things and left the school around midday. Driving back home, she was involved in a deadly accident that threw her several feet from her car.

Other drivers rushed to her side but she knew she was dying. With her final breath, she cursed the young girl and the school, vowing revenge. From that day forward the teens at the school would continue to hear Madam Koi Koi’s distinctive heels walking through the night.

Koi Koi’s Son

This version of the legend follows the first version I wrote above until the point where the students went out for revenge. Here, Lady Koi Koi has a son and while leaving the school, the students target him instead of her.

Her son runs across a road to evade the children and Koi Koi follows after. As she crosses the road, she’s hit by a car and dies. Following this, the students are haunted by Lady Koi Koi who is looking for her son and takes the students as revenge.

In a similar version, the students successfully kill her son and she is killed while running across the road in an attempt to help him. In yet another variation to this version, she picks up her son, evades the students by running onto the road, and they are both hit and killed.

Missing Shoe Variation

In every version of the story that I could find, no matter how she dies, there’s always a version of her losing one of her heels. Sometimes she loses it when she’s thrown from her car or hit by a car and another version says one of the students takes it from her to beat with with it.

In these versions, Lady Koi Koi always returns looking for the heel and will even approach you in the bathroom stalls to ask you where her heel is. Depending on how you answer, she’ll either leave you or kill you. In most versions, she kills you regardless.

Origin to Lady Koi Koi?

One of the biggest constants in every version I read or heard is the storyteller adding a line that no one knows how the legend started, even if the title of the article is “The Origin of Lady Koi Koi”.

It’s often generally accepted the legend started around the mid-20th century as that is when there was a huge influx of boarding schools built, especially in Nigeria. Boarding schools did exist prior to that, with the first going all the way back to the mid-to-late 19th century but, that one only started with 6 students.

Many of the boarding schools that opened up in the later decades were started by churches and, with their strict dress codes, it seems highly unlikely they would allow a teacher to wear red high heels on a daily basis.

Regardless, as this legend has spread through countless schools and countries in Africa mainly through oral storytelling, it seems highly unlikely the exact origin can ever be found.

Yoruba Mythology

During my research, I stumbled upon a couple of claims that the Madam/Lady Koi Koi legend originated in Yoruba mythology.

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa with a history dating as far back as the 7th century BCE and possibly even further. At this time they were not known as the Yoruba as that term did not become popular until the 19th century.

With a long history and a large percentage living in Nigeria, it seemed plausible the legend originated there but after looking at various documents regarding the different legends in Yoruba mythology, including the book “The Yoruba Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa” written in 1864 by Alfred Burdon Ellis, it seems highly unlikely.

Ethnographer Alred Burdon Ellis detailed a large portion of Yoruba mythology based on first-hand conversations with the Yoruba people. None of the legends, gods, folklore, or superstitions he wrote come close to matching the Koi Koi legend.

It’s important to note that a big part of the Yoruba culture was put into story-telling and most stories were made up by the storyteller. Those that made a profession of creating stories and traveling to tell them, were known as akpalo kpatita.

While the alos (fables) that were told sometimes involved spirits and didn’t always have a happy ending, there aren’t any involving a headmaster, teacher, or students. This makes sense as boarding schools didn’t become popular until decades later. No other resources on Yoruba mythology that I could find, make any reference to a Lady Koi Koi legend.

It is possible a story similar to the legend was told in the 20th century that then evolved into the Lady Koi Koi legend but it would be almost impossible to trace back. Unfortunately, this means the origin of the Lady Koi Koi legend cannot be pinned down for now.