Adeleke Babatunde
Reality does not bend to fantasy, when you are done manifesting, you must think out a strategy that gets you what you want, but first, what you want must exist and you must have access to it. I digress,
In a recent service at Pastor Bolaji Idowu’s Harvesters International Christian Centre, a teaching on realistic expectations in relationships met a loud reply from the women present: “Men dey!” There are men, they insisted, the wealthy ones who can fund the cars, the phones, the monthly sums.
As the proverb goes, the one who waits for the perfect meal may die of hunger. That reply revealed more than a moment of humour. It exposed a quiet exceptionalism: the belief that, regardless of the economy’s condition, an Uber-rich suitor is reserved for each of them. Time has already shown the outcome for some. It will do the same for others. The numbers have never supported the claim.
The numbers do not lie
Nigeria’s poverty rate has hovered around 63 percent in recent World Bank assessments, affecting roughly 139–140 million people out of a population of approximately 237–242 million. Multidimensional poverty measures (health, education, living standards) put the figure between roughly 90 million and 113 million depending on the exact methodology. Food insecurity remains elevated. Purchasing power has been eroded for years.
Globally, more than 824 million people, about one in ten of the world’s population, still live in extreme poverty (under $3 a day in 2021 purchasing power parity terms). Progress has slowed dramatically.
Now place the ultra-wealthy against this backdrop. Nigeria has only a handful of dollar billionaires (typically three or four on Forbes lists: Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga, Abdulsamad Rabiu, and sometimes Femi Otedola). The number of dollar millionaires is estimated between roughly 7,200 and 8,100. Centi-millionaires (those worth $100 million or more) number around 20–22. These are not all single, eligible, or interested in the kind of lifestyle funding some women expect.
Worldwide, the total number of billionaires sits between roughly 3,000 and 3,800. Ultra-high-net-worth individuals (net worth above $30 million) number around 557,000. In a world of more than eight billion people, and a Nigeria of roughly 242 million (with over 120 million males), the pool of men who can casually fund the “Uber-rich suitor” fantasy is vanishingly small.
The maths is not mathing. Expecting one of these rare men to materialise for the average young woman is statistically closer to a lottery ticket than a life plan.
It should surprise no one that many women who enter marriage carrying these expectations eventually discover the gap between the fantasy and the man in front of them. A partner who is solid, hardworking, and middle-class cannot deliver monthly allowances that rival some people’s annual salaries, frequent international trips, and the lifestyle of the top 0.01 percent. Resentment follows. Comparisons follow. “Men dey” becomes a quiet accusation inside the home.
The disappointment is often mutual. Men who felt they were “enough” discover they were measured against an almost non-existent standard. Marriages strain or collapse under the weight of unmet material dreams that were never realistic in the first place.
Men share the blame
Women did not invent this expectation in isolation. Too many men have trained it into existence.
You send a lady ₦1 million simply for being pretty. You do not know her character, her work ethic, her values, or whether she creates any value in your life. You reward existence and aesthetics. In doing so, you teach her that beauty is a billable asset and that men exist to pay for it. She internalises the lesson. She projects it onto the next man, and the one after that. The man who later refuses to play the same game is labelled stingy or “not serious.”
This is not generosity. It is market distortion. It inflates the price of beauty far beyond its sustainable value and leaves ordinary, decent men competing against a fantasy funded by the few who can afford the performance.
Those who actively seek men who reward beauty without any real value or venture are not merely chasing a lifestyle. They are enabling and abetting a quiet form of economic crime: the extraction of resources under false pretences of partnership, where nothing of substance is exchanged beyond appearance. It turns relationships into transactions that leave both parties poorer in the end.
Standards are healthy. Wanting a partner who is responsible, ambitious, and able to provide is reasonable. Demanding the lifestyle of the global elite as a baseline, in a country where the majority struggle to stay above the poverty line, is not standards. It is exceptionalism detached from arithmetic.
Pastor Bolaji’s point in that service was simple: there is a difference between standards and expectations that ignore the stage of life and the economic reality of most people. The congregation’s “Men dey!” response showed how deeply the alternative belief has taken root.
Time has already sorted some of these expectations. It will continue to sort the rest. The women who adjust to reality, who seek partnership rather than a personal ATM, will have better odds of building something lasting. Those who keep waiting for the statistical unicorn will keep waiting.
Men, stop training women to expect payment for existing. Women, stop treating the existence of a few ultra-rich men as proof that one is reserved for you. The economy is not a fairy tale. The numbers are public. And the maths still does not math.
May good people find good people. May gold diggers find sellers of gold.
That will be all.
