Linda Ikeji: Single Women Have No Bragging Rights…. Really?!

Ireyimika Oyegbami

The famous Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji, recently purchased an expensive house in posh Banana Island and the onslaught came flooding in. Tweeter went crazy when the news broke. While some people seemed genuinely happy and inspired by her, there were plenty of tweets who made it their business to tell her to go and get married.

One guy called Chuka Al-Fayeed‏@chukkietweets tweeted…
“Who will marry Linda Ikeji with her new house in banana island and the latest range” it’s sad that it’s actually the truth. Most guys won’t..

Another one said…
Mr Liverpool
‏@iAm_phizzy
Linda Ikeji oya find husband and marry.

I particularly liked the sermon she preached after posting photos of the house which is said to be worth over half a billion Naira, roughly $3,000,000 USD.

It is written in the Bible that, “He who finds a wife has found a good thing”. It would seem however that in Nigeria when the “good thing” is not found then ‘she’ is at fault and somehow her total being dwindles; not minding that the “He” who had the job of searching in order to “find” her failed. To put it across clearly; it is sad that a woman, a whole woman, is not considered ‘complete’ in our society unless she has a ‘Mrs’ attached to her name. Let us stop making marriage the only standard, judging the successful woman. It is all shades of wrong. These are some of the misconceptions simple minded people have about a successful women…

• Not married, not a success: This mindset which has society turning up their noses, some really ‘poor’ noses in some instances, at highly successful single women is an obsolete and grossly ignorant one. If marriage does not validate a male, why should it be held as a standard for certifying a successful woman? If a man who makes his own money and has a high status among his peers is a success; same then should define a successful woman, however, a lot of people in Nigeria vehemently insist that such a woman is not a success unless she is married.

• Single rich lady, she’s a prostitute: We realise that people, many who really should know better, are prone to saying things like “she is too picky that is why she is not married “, “she loves her career too much and has made no time for marriage that is why she is single at her age” and many other ‘poke-nosey’ kind of statements. The most popular it would seem is that which goes, “she sleeps with married men; senators, governors, chiefs and alhajis for the money, who will marry her?!” This thinking mostly originates from sheer envy; especially when there is no evidence to back up such outrageous claims.

• Single rich lady, give out your money: A rich man can hold on to all his money because he has obligations. Does the rich single woman not have obligations?! Perhaps she does give but does not make a fuss about it and even if she doesn’t give as much as you think she should, it is her money, she worked for it and so is at liberty to disburse it as she deems fit. I wonder why no one has set up a campaign asking rich Nigerian men to give out their money.

This phenomenon of talking down a woman because of marital status extends to the Nigerian legislative body where a male senator was once recorded insisting that a colleague of his; a female senator, should be passive and not air her views as he threw these words at her, “Don’t you have a husband at home?” One wonders what having a husband or not has to do with madam senator doing a good job and being a successful career woman.

The fact remains that there are many successful women in Nigeria; some are married, and others are not. Some are single mothers, and others are divorced. The more we begin to acknowledge the burgeoning group of Nigerian women who are taking giant strides and making waves in their chosen career path the better for the Nigerian society.

Let us eradicate archaic thoughts and proclaim the successful Nigerian woman a success woman in spite of her being married or not, the more we do this, the more we begin to move along the path of emancipation from mental slavery.