Early nineties was a good start for Yoruba cinema because it was then that producers started to groom interest in contemporary drama instead of traditional warlord feuds. The movie that helped to make the needed impression was Asewo to re Mecca (1992) and its unintended star – a boomer and one who bears the flick as her name – was Toyin Adegbola. Up to three decades in Nollywood has given her a fool-proof vision that it seems single or married millennials and Gen zers can benefit from, if they should ever value an elder’s advice about planning for the future as a woman living in a world where men cheat.

Sola Sobowale & Toyin Adegbola in Asewo to Re Mecca. pic.twitter.com/vFtdiwSnco

— Nollywood Circle (@nollycircle) October 12, 2023

How fitting that it had to be on an Instagram live session that she is laying the ground rules. At the heart of the conversations around feminism is that women and men should be equal. Maybe that would aid in checking the latter’s excesses but 60s’ kids have different views.

It finds strength in the thought that the two sexes cannot be equal. I have a friend who buys packs of condoms for her husband whenever he is visiting Nigeria. When the man arrived, he called me to let me know what my friend did. Won’t he sleep with another woman? Can a woman come to Nigeria and her husband buys her condoms? We don’t have equal rights, and I will continue to say this.

Asewo to re Mecca made this niche argument that the younger generation disagree with, just to let them know leaving a cheating husband through divorce would not help anyone. Particularly at a time in the future where the child of a failed marriage now wants to be wedded herself.

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This then births the thinking by the 62-year-old actress and producer teaching the younger womenfolk on Monday 23 September 2024, to hang in there with a cheating partner for the greater good.

According to Mrs Adegbola, who married a journalist and reportedly has two children living abroad with spouses, no matter how terrible your husband is, don’t ever think of chasing him out or leaving his house, because later, you will have to beg when your children have an important event.

As the woman, you have suffered in your marriage, and if you leave, no single man will marry you. Stay in your husband’s house and beg him to protect himself, and unsurprisingly husbands are feeling like they could give the advice a deep hug even though morally-conscious singles and ladies frown at this.

Sometimes, a woman while being courted, tells her lover to handle her with the care given to a baby because they can become vulnerable around the only object of their affection, their man but they didn’t really get a full pass from who was dishing out the advice because now she was demanding that they take us as your cross and see us as your first child.

And she adds with a balancing point that says, we have also married you and taken you as our first child because, despite how wise men are, they can also be very foolish, hence the need to show support a bit more.

This, however, didn’t stop strong words from younger women like the X profile Ooyinade1 tweeting: This is how they groom incompetent fools and expect another person’s properly molded daughter to keep up with the fools they’ve trained.

This is how they groom incompetent fools and expect another person’s properly molded daughter to keep up with the fools they’ve trained.

— lochana (@Ooyinade1) September 24, 2024

It was about the danger of sexually transmitted diseases for some. Wherever the pendulum swings, for the 20s and 30s ladies, the direction of the elder’s advice seems to be distasteful.

There is a dynamic that also occurs when picking out sides. It rests on the men-owned position that the majority of single mums who divorce their former husbands that have cheated still end up with new lovers that are repeating the same act. Some men claim they see this cycle in a perpetual spin. 

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Meiza Nigeria