As Gold rush is what happens when a chorus girl spots a man with a bankroll. Think of the chorus girl as Adaobi Alagwu, Abuja- based young lady, and the moneyed man as billionaire businessman, Dr. Tunde Ayeni. Bet in her rush for gold and filthy lucre, Alagwu never factored in the presence of Mrs Biola Ayeni.
While Alagwu postured and paraded herself as Ayeni’s preferred belle and the newest Mrs Ayeni in town, she never imagined she would encounter her nemesis in the real Mrs Ayeni – a trained attorney, an accomplished fashion designer and queen of the billionaire magnate’s homestead.
To Alagwu’s chagrin, her petulant plot to present herself as a younger wife to Tunde Ayeni backfired ultimately because the latter’s wife trusted him too much to doubt his fidelity. Biola never considered Alagwu much of a threat to her marriage despite attributing paternity of her daughter cum alleged love child to him.
Interestingly, she is hardly seen and rarely heard. Yet, Biola is the fundamental force behind some of the savoury successes of the billionaire businessman, lawyer, and former chairman of the defunct Skye Bank, Olatunde Ayeni. When Ayeni is junketing the world, closing deals, and breaking new grounds, Biola, the irrepressible nexus holding their close-knit family together, is with the kids wherever their education takes them, and praying for her husband’s success and safety.
Being married to one of Nigeria’s wealthiest men comes with a lot of perks and attention; the envy of friends and associates who would give a limb to swap places with you for one day; the cynosure of eyes at all gatherings; luxury vacations in the world’s most scenic destinations; private jet travels; luxury shopping at the ritziest fashion capitals; servants at your beck and call and a whole lot more.
However, Abiola is no trophy wife; she met Tunde at the Law School but she didn’t practice for too long to concentrate on taking care of the family. So, beyond the facade and fame of billionaire Tunde, she knows her husband more than anybody else. Hence, she stated without equivocation in a recent interview
she bares her mind on several issues including the travails of Nigeria’s fashion industry and rumours of her husband’s alleged infidelity. Excerpts…
Q- Married to a billionaire whose business tentacles spread all over the world, this certainly comes with challenges. What is the experience like?
Being married to a successful man will definitely come with its own challenges but how you manage everything that comes with it makes you a happy and fulfilled person. I woke up to that reality early in life when my husband started moving up the ladder of success and tended to travel a lot. Initially, I felt ‘this is not what I bargained for in marriage.’ But I had to tell myself, ‘If you have a husband that is always at home, you will not get some of the comforts you enjoy! It is the choice life has made for me. And I had to adapt. If you ask those whose husbands are home and around all the time, they would probably tell you that they prefer to have a husband who is hardly around but provides them with all the comfort they desire. The earlier one understands that finding satisfaction in what life throws at you is the only way to be happy, the better.
It was one thing for me to come to terms with this reality and it was another thing to make our young children understand why their father was hardly around at home. When Iyiola was in kindergarten school, his graduation from nursery clashed with his sibling, Bolaji’s school A-Levels exam in London, and I had to travel for a week to stay with her for that period. I told my husband to ensure that he attended Iyiola’s graduation but a meeting came up that he needed to attend on that day and he tried to delegate someone to attend the meeting. So he told my sister to attend on his behalf. Iyiola went to wake his dad up in bed early in the morning and said: ‘Dad, you mean you won’t be at my graduation?’ He was about four years old at the period. My husband said he was compelled to shelve everything and attend the event because the way the boy put the question to him made him feel like he was about to commit a crime. At that young age, Iyiola knew how to demand his rights. Sometimes, he came home insisting that his dad had to come and pick him up from school because his friends’ dads used to come and pick them up, and he didn’t understand why his father couldn’t do that. I had to sit him down and explain to him that his friends’ fathers are not in the same line of business as his dad. The fact that your father doesn’t pick you up from school doesn’t mean he loves you less, I told him.
were some of the challenges I faced because of his business. I passed through the phase of suspicion of extramarital affairs, checking phones, and insisting on accompanying him on trips and I grew up to see that those were mere traps and distractions that destabilise marriage. I finally realised that the best way to watch after your man is through prayers.
One thing you have to understand is that a handsome, successful and prominent man doesn’t have to be a flirt for him to start cheating on his wife, because even if he doesn’t chase women, women will chase him and if they don’t, friends will influence him. And in these days of desperate girls using diabolical means to seduce innocent men, only a naive wife would fight her husband over his dalliances with other women. These girls even go as far as trying men of God! So when married to a successful man, you can trust your husband with everything but not with women! It’s time to shift that trust to God concerning your husband. He will not allow him to hurt you or let you dow
