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The Urban Legend of Madam Koi Koi

With such a popular and saturated story, there are bound to appear variations of the legend of Madam Koi Koi as all good urban legends do. But the most popular goes something like this:

Madame Koi Koi was said to be a beautiful and fashionable teacher in a federal government secondary school. She was known for her beauty as well as her red high heels that would make a sound every time she walked the hallways of the boarding school where she worked. Thereby the name: Koi Koi as it mimics the sound of clicking heels.

**Madam Koi Koi:** The ghost of Madam Koi Koi is described as the ghost of a mean teacher that used to wear red high heels that you could hear clicking when she came down the hallways of the school she worked at.

Although beautiful, she was not known for being a kind woman and was also said that she was a very strict teacher and mean to the students. She was a brutal and violent woman that would beat the students up for no reason and enjoyed punishing them. This is also why she was deeply despised by them.

Madam Koi Koi was eventually fired after another violent incident where she took it too far and hit a female student. The slap she gave the young student was so hard that Madam Koi Koi injured the little girl’s ear. On her way home that day, Madam Koi Koi got into an accident and died. But before dying, she swore revenge on both the school as well as the students for firing her.

**From the Netflix Adaptation:** In 2023 Netflix made a mini series about the urban legend from the 90s called The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi .

After her death, the students at the boarding school said they could hear the clicking of her heels during the night throughout their dormitories. Even today the story persists and it is told between frightened students that Madam Koi Koi comes out in the night to haunt the students that wander out of their beds in the night.

The Different Versions of Madam Koi Koi

Another version of her ending was when the students took matters into their own hands after they couldn’t take anymore beatings from her. In this version of the legend, the students captured and gagged her and beat her to death. To conceal their crime they threw her body over the school fence after realizing what they had done and hoped they would blame someone else.

But although they had their reasons, she came back for revenge. One by one, the students that killed her started to disappear from the school and ended up dead. After the last person involved with it died the school was shut down forever as they had no way of knowing how to stop the wrath of the former teacher. The students that were transferred started new schools and spread the urban legend about the teacher that haunts boarding schools.

**Popular Urban Legend**: In Nigerian schools, especially in boarding schools, they tell the story about Madam Koi Koi to each other and is known as some of the most famous haunted stories in Nigeria. //Photo: *Emmanuel Ikwuegbu*

Sometimes the legend is retold that she loses one of the shoes, and she comes back to haunt the premise for her other one. Or sometimes, as in the Ghanaian version, it is specified that she was given the rude and bad students and that they one time locked her in a closet where she died and she was more of a victim than a perpetrator.

Read More: For more ghost stories from schools around the world, check out the The Kong Kong Ghost

In the South African one where she goes by the name Pinky Pinky and is a very different version than the Nigerian one. Here she is only part human, animal, male and female and prays in children’s school toilets to rape the girls if they wear pink underwear. The boys can’t see her, but feel the presence through a slap or scratch on the cheek.

No matter the version is told, she is always after the students. You can always hear her before you see her. She walks the corridors, opening doors, singing and whistling while her shoes click on the floor. And if you are caught by her ghost in the hallways or in the toilets, she may become violent.

Netflix Series About the Legend of Madam Koi Koi

In 2023, Netflix released a two part series about the urban legend called, The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi that are based on the story of the former teacher haunting the schools.

The series focuses on a young student named Amanda that are sent to an isolated boarding school called St Augustine Catholic College in the 1990s. The school is plagued with a history of sexual violence that seemingly has gone unpunished because of the powerful parents to the perpetrators.

At the new school, Amanda has troubles to fit in and starts having nightmares about something dark that are lurking in the forest outside of her school. Meanwhile, inside of the school she has to deal with the sexual harassment for the male students and the urban legend about revenge starts to unfold.

The Legend about Madam Koi Koi

In conclusion, the legend of Madam Koi Koi continues to captivate and intrigue students and Madam Koi Koi legacy has left an indelible mark on the haunted boarding schools across the African continent. And for every year that the new students arrives at the schools, the legend about Madam Koi Koi evolves.

So the next time you find yourself near the haunted boarding school, take a moment to reflect on the tales of Madam Koi Koi. Listen closely, and you might just catch the faint echo of a haunting laughter or the distant sound of high heels.

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References

The legend of the dead teacher who haunts secondary school students | Pulse Nigeria

Was Madam Moke real or not? – Opera News

https://www.nairaland.com/search?q=madam+koi+koi&search=Search

The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi (TV Series 2023) – IMDb

The Town Under Military Law

But this wasn’t always the case however as it was founded as a frontier military outpost built after the Fourth Xhosa War in 1812. and has an old prison known as the Old Provost. A long time ago Grahamstown was better known as a place under militant law, public punishments and public hangings, watched by a lot of people. The legend is that the ghost of one of these hanged people are still haunting the place next to the botanical gardens.

Read Also: More ghost stories from Africa like Madam Koi Koi and The School Hauntings in Nigeria

Built in Grahamstown in 1838, the Old Gaol or Old Provost was a military prison when martial law ruled in the old town during colonial times. The fortress was designed as a Panopticon prison, meaning a design that allowed for constant surveillance of the prisoners.

**Grahamstown**: The Town, officially renamed to Makhanda in 2018 was built as a military frontier, and is today a university city. The town has many haunted ghost stories, like the ghost of the dead man walking from the military prison old provost. Pictured is the view of the city from an old fort.// Source: Wikimedia

During this time the town was seen as rather uncivilized and it was said of it in 1833: “two or three English merchants of considerable wealth, but scarcely any society in the ordinary sense of the word. The Public Library is a wretched affair”

A few decades after this was said about the town however, Grahamstown was the second biggest town after Cape Town in the English colony.

The Haunted University in Grahamstown

The Old Provost is not the only ghost haunting the university town, as most of the faculty buildings have some sort of history and its local ghosts roaming around on the campus.

There are according to campus rumours, witnessed a young boy and girl in the journalism department haunting the halls. There is also whispers of ghosts that used to live in the small cottages the Institute of Biodiversity is now built on top over.

Read Also: Have a look at our ghost stories from the most Haunted Schools in the world like The Kong Kong Ghost

Even the botanical garden close to Old Provost has a ghost wandering in the green garden, smelling like perfume and feeling like a cold wind passing by. This is the ghost of Lady Jana Maria de los Dolores de Leon Smith.

But who was this ghost from the Old Provost, and why is he still haunting the place?

Dead Men Walking by Old Provost

The Old Provost prison was built for military offenders, and although a small building, ruthless punishments were put in place. Those who were convicted and served their time were put in these cells completely designed that you would never have a private moment inside the walls.

Those even more unfortunate and convicted to death were chained on their feet and hands, humiliated as they were lead from the fortress of the Old Provost to the plaza they were going to be punished in front of the entire population of Grahamstown. “Dead men walking”, as they were called.

The last person we know of that was publicly hung was in these parts were Henry Nicholls and is also known as the ghost that walks this final walk forever as a ghost. He pleaded guilty and was convicted for a rape happening in 1862.

**The Old Provost:** The military prison in Grahamstown was design for constant surveillance and is now a place were ghosts roams according to local legends.

He had already confessed to the crime, but didn’t really think it was a crime he had to pay with his life. Nicholls spent four months in the Old Provost, hoping to get of with his life as rape was not a capital punishment under English law but only prison time.

Read More: Have a look at all our ghost stories from Haunted Prisons like Ghost Stories of The Haunted Prison Alcatraz or The Ghosts From Security Prison 21 in Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

But since he was a military man, he was under military law. And according to that, the punishment for his crime was death by hanging.

The Last Hanging on the Eastern Cape

Watching a hanging like this was great entertainment for the people of Grahamstown and the rest of the surrounding areas. According to the stories, people rode for as long as seven days to behold the execution of Henry Nicholls by Old Provost. This hanging was the last execution in the Eastern Cape.

On 19 February 1862 was the last day for the convict and it was also his last walk. He was led out from the Old Provost and had to walk past the gathering crowd towards the gallows. He never got a chance for last words or prayers. He was simply strung up and hanged to his death in front of a blood thirsty crowd.

Read More: The ghost of Henry Nicholls is not the only ghosts haunting after being executed. Have a look at The Wizard of West Bow and His House of Horrors or The Pirate Haunting Burgh Island

But why is he still haunting the place? It’s perhaps difficult to answer for a ghost, but one of the theories was that Nicholls was unhappy and bitter about receiving a death punishment some only served prison time for.

The Bitter Ghost Haunting

Rape rarely got the death sentence, even back in that time and you mostly got sent away or served prison time, although being actually convicted for it was a lot harder than today.

A lot retelling the story of the ghost wandering from the Old Provos think that because of this, Nicholls meant that the punishment he received was too hard and the humiliating Nicholls ended his life, his soul can never be free.

Instead of going forward in his afterlife he is convicted of a life sentence, lasting for eternity, and must wander in all the remaining days between the Old Provost, now turned into a cute cafe, and the gallow, passing through the entrance to the now so modern university.