Biola Ayeni: Greatest Sacrifice I Have Made

*My home is unshaken

Despite the allegations and rumours of dalliances with several women that have dogged their marriage in recent times, Abiola, the 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 a person whose good-naturedness has been exploited for far too long, writes Lanre Alfred.

 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 lady, Adaobi Alagwu, 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, 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.

These 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 down.

What is the greatest sacrifice you have made in life?
You just hit something. The greatest sacrifice I have had to make in life is having to give up my own career as a lawyer to obey my husband’s directive to stay with the children because we can’t both be leaving home very early in the morning to run after money. We can’t leave the children in the hands of nannies. However, when I see some of my mates who are now Judges or Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), the sacrifice hurts. But I thank God that my children are well-mannered and are doing well to the glory of God. Interestingly, I have found fulfilment in the line of business I chose for its flexibility and the opportunity it allows me to be around my children.

Because of his prominence, he is always in the news. Only recently a lady, Adaobi Alagwu alleged that your husband is the father of her baby. How would you react to such news and how has it affected you?
Let’s take it one step at a time. Thank God you said because of his prominence he is always in the news. When a man is successful you know, he will have a lot of enemies and they would write a lot of things about him. When you have made a name, you will become a target for traducers. And that is when it’s good for you to know whom you are married to. It is important to know the kind of person you are married to. There was some publication about some incident and people started calling me about it. They asked me how I was feeling or coping and I told them that I was fine. I don’t listen to what they say about my husband outside and I don’t need anyone to tell me who my husband is. I have my husband beside me. When I need to clarify things, we talk about it. We don’t hide anything from each other. I prefer to hear it directly from his mouth no matter how bad. He has no reason to lie to me because he knows I will stand by him anytime, any day. Thus no matter what anyone says about him, it doesn’t bother me.

I know my husband has a good heart and he will stand by you through thick and thin. Once you are his friend, he becomes loyal to a fault. And even if you decide to make yourself his enemy by letting him down or cheating him, he would never seek your downfall.
My husband can be too trusting and I warn him every time that it is not everyone that would reciprocate the goodwill he shows towards them. But I see that he can’t change himself. It is his nature so I simply pray that God gives him a discerning spirit, in order to know who to avoid.
As for the impostor you mentioned, I will not glorify her by calling her a lady but somebody’s child. Because the age gap between her and my husband makes it more of an insult to refer to her as a lady. Her matter is not something I want to entertain.

As per your question on how I reacted to the news of her claim, truth be told, the first thing I did when I heard the news was to check with God if truly He would fold His arms and let anyone destroy a home He used His hands to build and guard jealously for 31 years and He told me that her claim is untrue and I should disregard it. In the end, the truth will prevail. The young lady knows the father of her child. And when I checked with my husband, he told me the child is not his! God has spoken and my husband has also spoken, nothing else matters. So, I am not moved by naysayers or rumours about her claims.

Is it true Adaobi Alagwu is now Mrs Ayeni and that her child is a daughter of Ayeni, how would you react to that?
I am not surprised the so-called girl is parading herself to be who she is not; by so doing, it becomes clear that she is a desperate gold digger and a slut who thinks she can become Mrs Ayeni by merely pinning a child on her highest paying victim. And it is quite surprising that despite her degree in Law, she needs somebody to tell her that a child is not a marriage certificate! Neither does a child offer her security to maintain a fake lifestyle that she has become accustomed to. And to now think that the child does not belong to my husband makes her claim even more embarrassing. Anyway, she has been warned through our lawyers to desist from parading herself as Mrs Ayeni because she is not and she will never be as the Lord lives. My husband and I are legally married
As for her calling her child by my husband’s surname, Ayeni is many. The child is not Tunde Ayeni’s child. Period! When she is tired of calling the child the borrowed name, she will change it to her father’s name.

You mentioned that your husband is quite generous and has a good heart and people take that for granted to say different things. It is alleged  that people who are close to her, Miss Alagwu, claimed your husband bought her a lot of of gifts when the going was good…
Let me tell you something, I didn’t want to go to this length before but since you asked, I will answer. Here is my take: It may appear as if my husband’s name is always associated with messy affairs with one lady or the other, but it doesn’t change my opinion of my husband and you cannot convince me that my husband is a flirt because I didn’t marry him as a flirt. Even if you show me all the evidence of how many women he has been with. Why? Because money makes a man misbehave. Friends make a man misbehave, and strange women seduce men with all manner of Jazz (juju) to make a man misbehave! Rather, I pity my husband as an unsuspecting and naive victim of the level of desperation and diabolical tendencies of this runs girl he got associated with. Even with his fellow men, my husband is too trusting. So, you can imagine the level of his nonchalance and how it led to such a mess. How can a man who is happily married and in his right senses be spending lavishly on a prostitute of that age?
Such magnitude of spending should raise the question ‘In return for what…five-minute pleasure?’ When spending becomes unusual, you should suspect that a man is under a spell. So, whatever she claims my husband bought for her, she knows what she did to get it from him. But that season has ended. I promise you.
To answer your question on whether the allegation has affected my marriage or my home? I am happy to let you know that Christ is the bedrock of my home, he has built a wall of fire around it and I can confidently assure you that my home is not threatened. My marriage is standing solid. My husband’s love for me is not threatened and he is not lost. My children are unmoved by the claim and my husband has no children outside of the three we have together.

Do you have any advice for young ladies out there?
My advice is that they should marry their own friends and know what their husbands are capable of doing or not doing so that they can properly defend them. In addition, build your home on Christ, not on trust. Trust may fail you along the line! When you marry your own friend, it is easy to see their pain and struggles rather than their faults, and this helps you to render them the necessary support they need to live up to your expectation. That support is prayer. You cannot have a successful man or marriage without being prayerful.
A lot of people get into marriage praying for their husbands to be rich without being prepared for all the things that accompany success. You need to know who your spouse really is. If I didn’t build my home on God and put my trust in Him; if I didn’t have the wisdom to differentiate an action that is my husband’s from what he did under some undue influence, the enemy would have succeeded with their plans. But I thank God for His faithfulness in my life and that of my husband and children.

As a fashion expert, can you describe Nigeria’s position in the world of fashion?
What I can say about the fashion industry in Nigeria is that it has improved tremendously from what it used to be, but we are yet to attain global standards because our improvement is wrongly channelled. If you look at the fashion industry in the Western world and compare it with the fashion industry in Nigeria you will see that we are not even ready to compete. In Nigeria as we speak the leading designers are still practising made-to-measure and freehand cut, and are making garments that cannot be sold abroad. Why? Because the focus is on the Nigerian market and getting little money here and there.
A lot of our designers still measure and sew for clients, but do not have any defined sizing concept that they could use to compete abroad. Sizing forces you to update your skills. We need to develop our skills and bring them to par with global standards. In the West, for example, garments are made through pattern making and computer aided designs.

I have a passion for fashion designing and when my husband mandated me not to practice, I saw it as a great opportunity to practice what I had always enjoyed doing from a young age. It was a talent that I developed. My driving force was to develop my skills to be at the same level as what obtained in the fashion industry abroad. So, I introduced pattern-making to my business as far back as 1997 and I switched to computer-aided design in 2014. If you want to compete with global brands, stop thinking locally. Think outside the box. If you don’t compare yourself with fashion designers abroad, you have not started. It’s not about making fantastic designs alone for individuals without being able to produce such in different size ranges within the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost.

I can understand that some people embraced made-to-measure couture in order to cater for celebrities and high-end clients but the kind of tailoring they practice to achieve it still leaves much to be desired, compared to their counterparts abroad.

My fashion outfit, Divine Endowments, started with made-to-measure couture in 1999 and has given birth to four arms of fashion designing in order to take care of the diverse needs of the Nigerian fashion industry. These four arms include the ready-to-wear couture, by which we make our local Ankara fabrics into ready-to-wear Western styles in blouses, dresses, men’s shirts, trousers and suits, and children’s wear, available in UK/US size ranges. We also have the children’s brand, BJREMY, which takes care of children and young people’s fashion and we have the Owambe by Divine Endowments which takes care of the aso ebi and party wears of individuals. And lastly, we discovered a need in the area of uniforms and we launched DEuniforms established to take care of all professional uniforms including construction and site uniforms, hotel and catering uniforms, outdoor catering uniforms, medical uniforms, school uniforms and so on.

 How will you say the economic reality of Nigeria has affected the fashion industry as described by you?

The economic situation has affected a lot of things. The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot of things as a result of the ban placed on large parties and gatherings, which made people organise parties without buying aso ebi, and with lesser crowds. I am sure that this affected a lot of people whose line of business depended on made-to-measure couture. But for me, I practice more of ready-to-wear and with the introduction of my uniform line, we are grateful to God. He has kept us busy and flourishing.

Are you a member of the fashion association and do you relate ideas like these back home to Nigerian designers? What do you think can be done to help the fashion industry?
I will not lie to you, when I used to have the time, I registered as a member of the FADAN. But as I widened my scope, it became very difficult be an active member.

What are your other business interests?
I am involved in the hospitality business. I like looking after people. Having attended parties and observed certain lapses, I decided to open an event centre.

Now that the kids are done with school, as a strict Christian, what are you looking at?
Face my husband, my business and my ministry because I am a pastor. I also guide my children to become firebrand Christians and to be successful in life.

What does money mean to you?
 Money is a good thing to have because it gives you comfort and respect. Money is something everyone needs and values. But the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. So, for me, the rule is: ‘Never value money more than relationships.’ Relationships outlive money. And that’s one reality I live with my husband.