If you’ve been following the entertainment and gossip blogs, then you’ll know Toke Makinwa is back in the news. This time around she is being accused of sleeping with a Nigerian billionaire, Festus Fadeyi and apparently ‘squandering’ money he borrowed for his company Pan Ocean Corporation from Skye Bank Nigeria. The gossip attributes her new bag line, her N50 million 2016 Range Rover and her growing collection of designer bags and accessories to him.

What is particularly disappointing about all the gossip milling around Toke Makinwa and Festus Fadeyi is not the fact that they are purportedly sleeping together, it is that Makinwa is being cast as some kind of Jezebel who has bewitched Fadeyi and is ‘using’ him for his money. Fadeyi’s children who are purportedly behind the rumours have asked that Makinwa leave him alone so he can service his debts and stop using the profits from his business to service her whims.

First of all, it is nobody’s business if Toke Makinwa is actually in a relationship with Festus Fadeyi. She is a single woman who has no obligations to stay away from married men if she so chooses. Festus Fadeyi is the one who is married and who has chosen (if the rumours are actually true) to step out of his marriage to engage in an affair. Many people have come forward to suggest that because Toke Makinwa’s marriage ended because of infidelity, she should be the last person who would turn around and then perpetuate the cycle of infidelity in another person’s marriage. This is merely an expectation, and again, she is not obligated to behave or order her life to meet anyone’s expectations. We can all please rest with the ‘homewrecker’ accusations.

It is also not Toke Makinwa’s job to police Festus Fadeyi’s finances. She is not the one who acquired his 169 billion naira debt with Skye Bank, she does not run his businesses or approve his financial transactions. Refusing his gifts because he is in debt is a personal decision not a universal morality to which she must subscribe. The more important question should be why Skye Bank thought it was a good business decision to loan billions of tax payers naira to a man who then uses the money to buy expensive baubles for his mistress. After all, as far as business goes Ms. Makinwa is showing judicious management of her finances. Perhaps Fadeyi’s children should take a lesson or two from her.

It is disappointing that in 2017, we are still expecting woman to police their sexualities just so that a billionaire can be forced to take his responsibilities seriously. Please, give it a rest.

Editor