- Says she’s not bothered by rumours of husband’s extra-marital affair with Abuja lawyer
Despite the allegations and rumours of dalliances with several women that have dogged their marriage in recent times, Biola, wife of billionaire businessman, Olatunde Ayeni, decries such inglorious labelling of her husband and declares emphatically that he is no flirt. Rather, she describes him as a good father, husband, and person whose good nature has been exploited for far too long, writes MUUJEEB OYEDEJI.
The charm of a trusty wife strikes at first sight but it is her merit that wins the heart. Through war and peace, thick and thin, she submits herself to the task of protecting her husband and her marriage. Biola Ayeni does this with the valour of a trooper and the passion of a poet. Thus it may be said that her love for her husband is true as the needle to the pole or the dial to the sun.
The fashion entrepreneur and wife of former Skye Bank Chairman, Tunde Ayeni, commits diligently to upholding the sacred tenets of their wedlock with the devotion of one who understands that the best moments in life are spent in the glory of a worthy spouse
If you ask her, she would tell you that suspicion lowers the most promising matrimony to the petty level of the meddling Joneses. She would tell you that love’s transcendent bliss while surreal must scorn the fungus of distrust in order to fully thrive. Thus her decision to stand by her man in the wake of disconcerting allegations by an Abuja-based lawyer, claiming to be his wife and mother of his child. Beyond family, Biola asserts herself in her craft with matchless ingenuity. The mother of three competes convincingly with the leading brands in the United Kingdom and the United States. She has won the most sceptical fashion buffs over even as she titillates the interests of the random enthusiast with her inventiveness and entrepreneurial depth. Ultimately, she has even her most ardent critics eating from her palms. In this interview, Mrs Ayeni bares her mind on several issues including the travails of Nigeria’s fashion industry and rumours of her husband’s alleged infidelity. Excerpts….
Married to a billionaire whose business tentacles spread all over the world certainly comes with challenges. What is the experience like?
What I want you to understand is that life is a package, and just like the pineapple, despite being known for sweetness, it has different segments that come with it. The first and the sweetest part is the bottom. The upper part of it is not that sweet, and when you cut it into two halves, you have the hard core, and when eaten, it has a mixture of bitter sweetness; it can cut your tongue or itch you. The outer skin is also another part of it that itches and can poke you, and the crown of the pineapple another part that is basically useless. Six parts all in one fruit! Such is life.
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. As for me, I woke up today that reality early in life when my husband started moving up the ladder of success and tended to travel a lot and I felt this is not what I bargained for in marriage. But I had to tell myself that 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 to the unpleasant side of it.
If you ask those whose husbands are home and around all the time, they would probably tell you they prefer to have a husband who is hardly around with all the comfort you get. The earlier one understands that finding satisfaction in what life throws at you is the only way to be happy in life, the better.
It was one thing for me to come to term with this reality and it is another thing to make our young children understand why their dad is not around most times like they see other parents do. When Iyiola was in the kindergarten, his graduation from nursery clashed with Bolaji’s graduation while she was doing A Level in London and I had to travel for a week to stay with her for that period. I told my husband to ensure he attended Iyiola’s graduation but a meeting came up that he needed to attend that day, and he tried to delegate someone to attend the meeting because he felt it was only a nursery graduation. 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 convicted him like it was a crime he was about to commit. At that young age Iyiola knew how to demand his rights. Sometimes he came home insisting his dad had to come and pick him from school because his friend’s dads used to come to pick them up from school and he couldn’t understand why his dad couldn’t do that. I had to sit him down at that age and explain to him that his friends’ fathers are not in the same line of business as his dad. The fact that your Dad doesn’t pick you up from school doesn’t mean he loves you less than those whose father made out time to pick their children from school either because they didn’t have a driver or they just felt its right to do so.
These are 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 a trip, and I grew up to see that those were mere traps and distractions that destablise peace in marriage. And finally come to realise that the best way to follow a man around is through prayers
