₦airaland Forum

"Plenty Girls Are Going Into Relationships Because Of What They Will Eat" — Emeka Ike Slams Women With Hidden Financial Motives

Veteran Nollywood actor Emeka Ike has sparked conversations on social media after criticising people who enter romantic relationships with hidden financial motives, arguing that such behaviour turns love and marriage into a form of deception.

The actor made the remarks during an interview, where he addressed what he described as the growing trend of treating relationships as opportunities for financial gain rather than genuine companionship.

While insisting that love and marriage remain sacred, Ike said problems arise when one partner secretly expects material or financial benefits without making those intentions clear from the outset.

Emeka Ike speaks on love, marriage and financial motives

Speaking during the interview, Emeka Ike said, “Plenty girls are going into a relationship because of that they want to collect from the man. They should just go and be doing Bambiala and begging on the street instead. Love and marriage is not a scam but there’re few people that are hungry and using relationships as meal tickets, when you’re liking him for an end that he’s not aware of, that’s what makes it a scam.”

The actor maintained that genuine love should be the foundation of every successful relationship, warning against disguising financial interests as affection.

He also encouraged Nigerians to be honest about their intentions instead of pretending to be in love for personal gain.

Social media remarks spark debate
Beyond financial motives, Ike also advised women not to compare their marriages with relationships portrayed on social media, saying every union is different and requires patience, communication and understanding.

His comments have since generated mixed reactions online, with some Nigerians agreeing that hidden expectations can damage relationships, while others argued that financial stability naturally influences many people’s choice of partners.

The interview continues to fuel wider conversations about honesty, love and expectations in modern relationships.

“Plenty girls are going into a relationship because of that they want to collect from the man. They should just go and be doing Bambiala and begging on the street instead. Love and marriage is not a sc@m but there’re few people that are hungry and using relationships as meal…

“Plenty girls are going into a relationship because of that they want to collect from the man. They should just go and be doing Bambiala and begging on the street instead. Love and marriage is not a sc@m but there’re few people that are hungry and using relationships as meal… pic.twitter.com/qgTCqy5c4T

— Oyindamola🙄 (@dammiedammie35) July 3, 2026

This is where rituals come in

Our tradition and societal norms in black Africa is 95% self-preservation inspired.

Not far from the truth.

Going into a relationship with a Nigerian banny presently is equivalent to running an orphanage . The only difference is that orphans will appreciate your efforts and put you in their prayers while a Nigerian banny won't . In fact,they see it as an automatic obligation upon a man to be footing all their useless bills immediately you start dating them

What about your wife

Sonnobax15:

Not far from the truth.

Going into a relationship with a Nigerian banny presently is equivalent to running an orphanage . The only difference is that orphans will appreciate your efforts and put you in their prayers while a Nigerian banny won't . In fact,they see it as an automatic obligation upon a man to be footing all their useless bills immediately you start dating them

It's the truth....and it's not a secret.

:::


They are looking for what to eat but don't want to work


Are they handycaped ?

Omo relationship na transaction everywhere nowadays

Correct!
Ol ya resources!
Dem go line up for gate!

Definitely, it's survival mode for the woman but true love or lust for the man

Love may be blind, but hunger has 20/20 vision.😂 Cupid is losing market share to inflation.

Especially Single Mothers

The economy hardship and poverty in Nigeria is also a big contributor.

The men are also looking for sex without commitment.

Nigerian women fit Nigerian men.

EOD.

Na girls go say
If a man is not earning in millions, what is he doing with relationships.
Girl wey no get #5k for cash and account all together.......
Abeggggggg
Leave ladies alone oooooooo
They are in their own planet.

Is relationship still existing again? It's pure transactional now, you remember the girl/woman whenever you have little "change" after enjoyment, you disappear to thin air until next eke market day.

This is just nothing but the truth

God bless you , you have said it all

Lols

Nigerian Ladies will not like this news.

In 2018, the babe I had, once she visits, first thing is to Cook indomie to chop and later give me her 'food' to chop.

just say nigerian girls, no need to use all that pronoun. Cameron girls dey love u as u are

And the men are using relationship as disguise for sex without commitment.

Tit for Tat.

[if you are here to catch cruise and can't read a long explanation, kindly skip this post. I took time writing on this and using some research to look deeply into this issue beyond the surface. If you have your own observation over the years from society and life events, I am happy to read your own independent thoughts]

They are in the survival mode and relationships have always been about survival.

In biology, these survival dynamics are called symbiotic relationships. When humans are in survival mode, their relationships often mimic these exact ecological categories.

A parasite thrives by draining resources from a host, leaving the host weakened or damaged. In humans, one partner handles all the emotional labor, financial burdens, or logistical responsibilities. The parasite isn't necessarily malicious, they are often emotionally bankrupt and using the other person to survive. The host eventually burns out from total resource depletion.

In mutualism, both species actively rely on each other to survive, and both benefit from the exchange (like bees and flowers). Both partners bring equal support, safety, and resources to the table. Even if life is hard externally, the relationship itself is a team. It operates on cooperation rather than competition or exploitation.

Why are we having survival exploitation mentality today? Because Africa Nigeria has abandoned its culture!

In many traditional African societies, marriage was designed for collective survival and legacy, not just two individuals. It was a contract between two families or clans, often solidified through customs like bride price. This transfer of assets wasn't buying a person. It was a formal economic rebalancing. One family lost a valuable source of agricultural and domestic labor, while the other family gained it, along with the right to future offspring to grow their lineage.

If a husband failed to provide or protect, the entire community or council of elders stepped in. It was tied to a larger, predictable tribal framework where roles were rigidly defined but collectively enforced. The rise of modern individualism accelerated by economic shifts, Westernization, and feminism changed the baseline of survival from communal to individual. Feminism legally and economically uncoupled women from needing a marriage contract just to survive basic daily life (e.g., gaining the right to work, own property, and hold independent bank accounts) to being on their own. Now before you think this is about feminism or women bashing, hold on. I have written on this before and I can tell you from history that before the whites came to brainwash us and extended it with neocolonialism, our women were never lazy. They were independent, industrious and entrepreneural. It's this independence that made them fight governments in history especially tax wars. But they were wise, they went into professions that protected the home. They knew the importance of the family and sisterhood. They had support system. Oyinbo no send you na why maternity leave na like war. Historically, West African Market Queens and East African female agriculturalists controlled their own production, held significant political authority, and maintained independent financial streams. This economic independence did not disrupt marriage, it was a foundational component of it. Men and women operated in a dual-sex system because it was a survival necessity. Women controlled food subsistence, local trade, and specific political spheres, while men handled defense, heavy clearing, and external diplomacy. Neither gender could survive or thrive without the explicit, structured output of the other. It was a codependency built on mutual leverage.


European colonizers arrived with a 19th-century Victorian world view. In their view, proper women stayed in the private domestic sphere, and only men should handle money, politics, and property. Colonial authorities systematically introduced cash economies and land-titling laws that named men as the sole owners of land. This effectively dispossessed women who had farmed and traded on that land for centuries (there are videos on YouTube you can watch to educate yourself, mention me and I can refer you to one of them in Nigeria, it's on Sahara page). Tax systems were designed to force African men out of villages and into wage labor (mines, corporate plantations, and civil service). This disrupted the complementary family unit, forcing women into systemic economic dependency on men and the colonial state (in the abroad, that is what is happening indirectly). Colonialism introduced an artificial, parasitic structure. By giving all legal, land, and financial leverage to men, the colonial system broke the mutualism (today we ignorantly blame the men for being patriachial but don't understand the system). Women were stripped of their ecological niche (economic and political autonomy) and forced into a position of strict dependency. When one half of a mutualistic pair loses its leverage, the relationship degrades into subordination. That's why women started fighting for empowerment and backup just in case the man abuses her which if you look at it well, the man wey wan abuse your daughter dem no born am well in the past not because he could not but the woman was sure of her family back up. In fact, women in the past married 2-3/4 times and had children for different men but most times, it was within a marriage because of how we see baaaastards and future consequences but today that one no consain Amina, Ada or Atinuke, Baby Mama to the core!


The modern corporate economy inherited this colonial blueprint. It frames the "corporate ladder" or the "boss girl" lifestyle as the ultimate liberation for women. However, this structure operates on a timeline that often conflicts with biology.

1. Stage 1 [Age 20-30] Corporate Focus: High energy devoted to building capital and corporate value. Peak fertility years are traded for corporate metrics. Ask your medical doctors they know, women are still trying to argue with over 100 years of science by storing eggs in the lab, thinking they can bet against the future. Their income and economic empowerment has been taken away from them to bank against the future.

2. Stage 2 [Age 35-45] Biological Reality: The body's biological clock signals a desire for family and stability. This is when they realize that a corporate title cannot replace a biological legacy.

By the time many women reach their late 30s or 40s, they recognize that corporate milestones do not substitute for the biological realities of family, legacy, and long-term companionship. The corporate system extracts their prime years, leaving them materially secure but emotionally isolated. The maternal instinct can never be bought except they catch that woman young with dangerous ideologies like transgender and all that nonsense.

For the girls now who have three choices,
1. Stay as a good girl in your father's house till you leave (e get why dem de marry woman for her papa house)

2. Go hustle on her own because life is not balanced and her family can't do well (this one has two options, survive in jungle and remember your roots or get lost in modern world)

3. The girl who gets lost in modern world and has to do hook-up or anything to survive at all costs (sometimes you go swear for your politicians because the policies they pass has impact on the girl child and the family as a unit in general but this is not about politics).

When a society dismantles traditional family safety nets and replaces them with an unstable economy, relationships degrade into raw survival tactics. Modern hookup culture is often less about liberation and more about a commodified market response to scarcity and lack. It is the society's response to inequality. Without a traditional structure or an extended family network to vet partners, provide security, or hold men accountable, young women face high economic pressure on their own. In an environment stripped of communal trust and people just want to survive, the interaction reverts to a basic animalistic instinct and trade - young women barter their youth and physical presence for immediate financial support or lifestyle maintenance, while men utilize their financial resources to gain short-term access. The monkeys in Bali are a prime example of this incident when COVID-19 affected tourism and the visitors affected the local economy. Also, when long-term marital security feels unattainable or untrustworthy, interactions become short-term and transactional. You see eh, this thing is not just within Nigeria. When Nigerian men complain about our women abroad that when they see money, the first thing they do is disrespect their husband, it is economics that is their problem. Many of us do not understand the importance of the concept of marriage that's why men say it is against them, women say it is not for them and the government will take care of them (excuse me sis, you are the government's beach pardon my Spanish)!

The Western system rewrites the contract of marriage, shifting it from a structure of mandatory biological interdependence to one of voluntary partnership while in traditional African settings, the survival matrix relies on a balance of distinct, gender roles. The Husband provides external protection, resources, and structural security while the Wife manages internal infrastructure, family operations, and community integration.

When these couples move to the West, the state replaces the husband's unique value proposition. Now, I don't want to write another epistle but I will edit this post by quoting my previous post on this topic. If we sit down and talk dispassionately about this topic, we will see that our ancestors get sense pass sense but instead of us to build on it, we went to take another man's system thinking it will work for us. The paradox of it is that modern Nigerian men who go abroad are highly valued because when paired with modern independent women abroad who have economic freedom (remember this is how African women used to be until they brainwashed them), they find out what is missing. The oyinbo woman is surprised that a man can still provide and be responsible (the opposite of what the western system has done to the man by castrating him to become a sister or so-called partner in his house) while the man thinks it is his deeek that is talking but he is surprised that this woman is not billing him. He is pleasantly surprised by this. If they both have sense, they can build something together. I do not want to now tell you how I have unlearned that polygamy is bad because when you read history and observe those who do it right, you can't but notice the wisdom.

By stripping away modern ideological lenses, we can see that pre-colonial African polygamy functioned as an economic co-op and a logistics network, whereas modern hyper-independent dating functions as a high-risk, atomized competition. In many pre-colonial African societies, marriage was not an emotional selfish luxury of fake love that women are doing today by taming a man and possessing him, it was a joint economic venture. When a woman was wealthier than her husband, polygamy was a highly practical tool for her own expansion. A wealthy market woman or agriculturalist had massive operational demands. By bringing in co-wives (often vetted or even financed by the first wife), she was recruiting trusted business partners. Families have more to lose if they betray themsleves. Co-wives formed a built-in childcare, domestic, and logistical network. One wife could manage the market, another could oversee the crops, and another could manage the homestead and children. They pooled resources, shared the domestic burden, and operated as sisters in a corporate-style alliance. In this system, the husband was not expected to be the sole provider or financial savior. He served different structural purposes for them such as external diplomacy, physical defense, lineage extension, and managing the broader family estate. His value was intrinsic to the tribal structure and family unit as head of house. Today, modern society tells women that working a 9-to-5 job for a corporation and paying 100% of their own bills is "independence" and "empowerment." From a human ecology perspective, this is a massive survival trade-off. I have written about this above. Instead of sharing the burden of life with a tight-knit collective of sisters, the modern independent woman carries the entire weight alone. She must be the sole provider, the sole housekeeper, and the sole parent, while competing in a hyper-individualized economy. "Independence" is often just isolation from a natural human support system. It forces women into a permanent state of high stress and survival mode, which biologically militates against peace and long-term stability. When women are forced to be hyper-independent, they begin to view men solely through a transactional lens (Can he earn more than me?). If he cannot, he is often deemed redundant or "not doing enough." this is how hypergamy has become so common today. This financial bashing completely ignores a man's non-monetary biological and social utility. Attributes like emotional stoicism, physical protection, tribal leadership, mentorship for children, mechanical competence, and steadfast loyalty. Money can buy a service, but it cannot buy these character traits. Some people think it's cruise that there are more widows than women who died first because the man has slaved himself to death for one woman who enjoys it alone while his own grandmother lived till her 90s and his grandfather was kicking and alive in the same age with many wives. The selfish nature of women make them take his assets when he's done at 40/50 these days. He thought he could do it alone but how wrong was he....

It’s natural in countries with high poverty rate.

Hungry girls everywhere....

Interestingly,some of the ladies will be complaining that men are no longer toasting them.

And a lot of men go into relationship because of kpekus

folake4u:
The men are also looking for sex without commitment.

Nigerian women fit Nigerian men.

EOD.

Most men want commitment but outrageous billings discouraging them. You cannot go out to visit your girl/woman for fun, talking and gisting, you must cough something over there.

Nothing kills sprit of commitment faster than over-billings. Even to chat hello, the next is " I'm broke", I'm hungry, I need money, send me card"!

I Will Rather vote For Tinubu Than pity a Single Mother,

spiceadole:
And the men are using relationship as disguise for sex without commitment.

Tit for Tat.

At the end,it's the lady that will suffer not the guy!
There is no tit for tat.

folake4u:
The men are also looking for sex without commitment.

Nigerian women fit Nigerian men.

EOD.

Can you tell us what commitment you are talking about?

Fiscus105:
Most men want commitment but outrageous billings discouraging them. You cannot go out to visit your girl/woman, just for talking and gisting, you must cough something over there.

Nothing kills sprit of commitment faster than over billings. Even to chat hello, the next is ok I'm broke, I'm hungry, I need money, send me card!

'Tomorrow is my birthday'
'my gas will soon finish'
'i haven't eaten since last month'