By Adeola Agoro
On Helen Prest-Ajayi, the digital townsquare has been in full session over the past few days and as usual, the verdicts are being delivered with lots of wit and very little mercy.
Ever since a court ruled that the late Dr. Tosin Ajayi’s first wife remains his legal spouse after a grueling five-year battle, social media has hung Helen Prest out to dry.
The commentators, wielding spreadsheets of ‘return on investment’ and mocking a 25-year relationship as a case of ‘work done equals zero’, have had a field day.
They look at her Law degree, her Masters, her legacy as an iconic Miss Nigeria and they ask: “How could a woman so educated labor for a quarter of a century in another woman’s farm for free?”
It is easy to throw stones from behind a keyboard. But when you look closer at the tapestry of Helen’s life with Dr. Ajayi, you realize that social media isn’t judging a relationship; it is judging a caricature.
The reality of what happened between those two adults over 25 years is not a case of ‘pickmeism’ It is a story of love, profound grief, societal hurdles and the quiet emotional battles that many women fight behind closed doors.
The critics ask why they didn’t get divorced from their previous partners and tie the knot legally. But anyone who understands the legal terrain in Nigeria knows that divorce is not a three-click process. It can drag on for a decade, draining your emotions, your patience, your finances and your privacy.
And while the legal wheels were turning at a snail’s pace, life was happening.
They were building businesses. They were navigating societal expectations. They were dealing with health challenges.
More painfully, they were grieving.
Before the blessing of their only child together arrived, Helen and Dr. Ajayi walked through the darkest valley a couple can endure: they mourned the loss of a child together.
When you share that level of primal heartbreak with a man and when you hold each other through the grief to eventually welcome another child, a piece of paper from a marriage registry starts to feel incredibly small. You are bound by blood, tears and a shared history.
You don’t stop living your life or building a home just because a court file is gathered in dust somewhere.
There is a cruel assumption online that Helen simply sat back and did nothing, or worse, that she ‘worked for free.’
Let’s be real: for a woman of Helen Prest’s pedigree, status and intellect, begging a man for marriage would have been beneath her dignity.
It is highly likely that this was a conversation they had many times. She may have spoken her piece, laid out her expectations and waited for him to act, as any woman of pride would do.
To suggest she was just a passive bystander is to completely misunderstand the caliber of woman she is.
Furthermore, when Dr. Ajayi’s health began to fail, what was she supposed to do? Demand a division of properties on his sickbed? Turn his final days into a transactional negotiation for estates and bank accounts?
It would have been utterly insensitive, if not monstrous to force a legal showdown while the man she loved was fighting for his life. Helen chose humanity over hostility. She chose to be a companion, a caregiver and a lover until his last breath.
To the legions of women mocking Helen today under the guise of being ‘safely married,’ it is time for a sober reality check.
Many who boast of a marriage certificate are merely occupying a house, not a home. They have the ring, but their husbands’ hearts, minds and presence belong to someone else entirely. They are deceiving themselves in gilded cages, yet they possess the audacity to look down on a woman who had a man’s full devotion, companionship and partnership for 25 solid years!
And let us talk about the properties everyone is fighting over. If we are being completely honest, many of the critics celebrating this judgment wouldn’t even know what to do with Dr. Ajayi’s estate.
Without the business sagacity, intellect and administrative grit of a woman like Helen, those assets will likely be sold off or mismanaged anyway.
Helen wasn’t just a decoration in Dr. Ajayi’s life; she was a co-traveler who brought immense value to his world.
Who knows? Perhaps this five-year court battle and the decision to go to appeal, is actually Helen’s final recourse after years of fighting silent, exhausting emotional battles over these exact matters.
We do not know the tears she cried in private while maintaining a brave, glamorous face for the public.
We do not know the assurances she was given that failed to materialize in black and white.
To the first wife who was estranged for decades but emerged to claim the legal title and a third of the estate: if winning the properties makes you feel validated, good for you.
But Helen has the memories. She has the 25 years of shared laughter, the late-night conversations, the building of a legacy, the mutual comforting through tragedy and the knowledge that she was the one he chose to walk the final, longest stretch of his life with. No judge can award those memories to an ex-wife and no court order can take them away from Helen.
As this case heads to appeal, a major new chapter of this story is about to unfold. More truths will come to light and the legal definition of partnership in Nigeria may face its own reckoning.
But until then, let Nigerian women look at Helen Prest not with mockery, but with kindness and empathy.
Her story is a cautionary tale about the coldness of the law, yes, but it is also a testament to the fact that a woman’s worth and the depth of her love, can never truly be measured by a piece of paper.
And as I write this, I know and you know that a lot of us women are on the different sides of the divide and the men are the ones dragging us where we really don’t want to be, but we keep loving and crying quietly.
Adeola Agoro writes from Abuja.
