The problem with Aunty Linda’s epistle

Since last week Linda Ikeji has dominated headlines, Twitter trends and Facebook statuses with her baby daddy drama following the epistle she shared on her social media alongside pictures of Baby Jayce.

The Naija Twitter has weighed in on anything and everything from Linda’s come-uppance as karma hits back on years of her baby mama shaming to her driving two and a half hours in Lagos traffic for hook ups with her baby daddy.

As for me, I am more intrigued by the blogger’s post which boasts a longer word count than some university dissertations. From the gratuitous details of the affair gone sour, to not so humble brag about her wealth to justification of her ‘fall’ into baby motherhood, it stinks a little too much of ‘the lady doth protest too much’.

“The married man that I will sleep with has not yet been born. If he’s been born, he will die, be buried, rise and die again before he will lay with me. I don’t do married men.”Interesting that Linda Ikeji brings up Sholaye Jeremi’s marital status, as the debate that’s been raging on has been more to do with her vows of celibacy than whether Mr Jeremi’s married. Considering there’ve been rumours that Mr Jeremi is actually a married man, you’d think Nigeria’s top gossip blogger would investigate before jumping into this relationship or fact-check before putting this statement out on social media.

At the time I met him he lived in a 3-bedroom flat at what used to be 5th roundabout in Lekki after Mobil. See 50 levels of shade. Now that we know the alleged baby daddy is actually an oil billionaire with close ties to leading tycoons such as Femi Otedola and Dr Ibe Kachikwu, Ikeji’s very blatant shade throwing mentioning the ‘3-bedroom flat at what used to be the 5th roundabout in Lekki after Mobil’ just seems petty.

This man was already calling me Linda Ikeji Jeremi and making all these plans but then just like that, it was over between us.
If anyone should know better, after years of writing about others’ affairs gone sour, it is Linda. Sweet nothings are just that: sweet nothings. A man can and will tell you anything while the going is sweet. He said something about putting a billionaire baby inside me and I remember jokingly telling him that I’m also a billionaire so our child was going to be a billionaire on both side…and we laughed. Uhmmmm… okay… TMI, but we’ll let that one slide for now. Aunty, you’re trying to clear up your mess so what’s with the humble brag?

God doesn’t make mistakes. God doesn’t make mistakes, but us mere mortals do. Got to love it when someone who’s erred in the eyes of fellow men and women uses God to explain their mistakes. Sometimes it unfolds into something we never dreamed of but because we don’t recognize the route we find ourselves on our journey through life, doesn’t mean God won’t get us to our destination.

Remember, an uncertain chapter doesn’t ruin the whole book. Life will happen whether we are ready or not. All we can do is keep our heads up and keep moving.What could’ve have taken the heat off and endeared Linda Ikeji to a mocking public was if she had also added ‘put your hands up and admit your foolishness’. What did not occur to her was that sometimes God takes us down a different route to the one we’d planned to teach us the folly of our judgement over others and show us that we too can make mistakes we mock in others.
I was 37 years old at the time I conceived and if I want to be honest, my age played a role in me allowing myself to be pregnant out of wedlock.

“Fall pregnant”, “allowing myself to be pregnant” are all passive phrases, as if pregnancy is a disaster that claimed Linda as an unsuspecting victim. People don’t “fall” into pregnancy. The worst-case scenario they fall on someone’s privates, and lo and behold, nine months later, a baby pops out. Joking aside, women and men are equal partners in this; you get intimate, you have sex, you get pregnant. The decision is not an act of nature or a disease you catch.

I am 38 years old and I recently bought an N100million+ car; what the heck do you need to be sleeping with a man for?Gratuitous not-so-humble brag. Why would anyone choose to boast about a “N100million+ car” and the fact that they are a billionaire in a post that’s supposedly about the breakdown of what was once for them a special relationship? We already know Linda Ikeji’s wealth, while she may feel the need to use her wealth as a case in point that she didn’t sleep with a man for financial gain, this is such a crass, ‘holier and richer than thou’ way of doing it.

I was celibate for many years until I met my son’s father and fell in love. And instead of increasing my body count, I just went back to the same eggplant.

Shortly after she writes “We were not suited for each other… I walked away from this man a million times and he came after me a million and one times” Linda Ikeji advises going back to “the same eggplant” rather than increasing body count. To the girls who look up to her. Are you for real? The moral of the story? Knowing full well a man is not right for you, and that you’ve exhausted the relationship and perhaps it is better to walk away and seek love elsewhere, keep going back, because celibacy… Then you wander why baby daddy has left skid marks speeding off and left you holding the baby.