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.
