Relationships, romance and related topics have always been a hotspot for discourse and heated debate, especially in online spaces where phrases such as ‘talking stage’, ‘gift giving’ and the likes consistently increase in volume, almost drowning out any other topics of discussion.
While the discourse surrounding gender roles regarding romantic relationships is a constant in these spaces, in recent years, there has been an upward trend in transactional relationships being framed as aspirational, or even the norm with this sentiment being reflected even beyond social media. This is in stark contrast to earlier framing of such relationships which usually involved the women who partook in them being painted as loose, conniving, immoral and taking advantage of the men who were generally more well off than they were. While this shift on the scale of Nigerian morality can easily be ascribed to the nation’s worsening economic situation and increased cost of living, there are several intersecting factors that have contributed to the change in tone regarding transactional relationships in Nigeria today.
Romantic relationships with love as the basis are generally a relatively new concept, especially in Nigeria where patriarchy has a particular stronghold. More than just two people in love, relationships are often built on familial and societal expectations. In a country where women are raised against the backdrop of harried whispers reminding them that they must “marry well,” relationships don’t just involve finding a loving partner; they prioritise finding a responsible provider. This financial dominance embodied by men, which is not just seen as the norm but also as an indicator of an ideal relationship, inadvertently turns Nigerian women into opportunists, seeking the best ‘provider.’
Even beyond familial pressures and societal ideals pushing Nigerian women towards relationships which are skewed in favour of men, economic and political factors come into play. There is a disproportionately low representation of Nigerian women in power at all levels, from the workplace to government and the result is that Nigerian women aren’t exposed to narratives where women and their value aren’t inherently linked to men.
Nigerian women are also overwhelmingly infantilized, aided by the continued existence of laws that directly whittle down the autonomy of women and the absence of institutional mechanisms promoting women’s rights. This drastically reduces the quality of life enjoyed by Nigerian women, implies that the closest they can get to any real power is through proximity to men (who are granted power simply by virtue of being men) and thus encourages women to view their worth as directly linked to their appeal to men. This male-centred socialisation of women is exacerbated by Nigerian media which shapes mass perception and imagination, particularly Nollywood, the multi-billion dollar film industry which has a history of ignorance when portraying women, with female characters being written as one dimensional and lacking distinct personality — women are either long suffering traditional wives, witchlike step-mothers or selfish career women.
With love on the backburner and manhunting at the centre, the template for Nigerian romantic relationships doesn’t exactly place men and women on equal footing and it is against this backdrop that transactional relationships have been able to exist in the first place.
Earlier this year, Burna Boy found himself in the eye of a social media storm, after a conversation between Lagos socialite Sophia Egbueje and her friend leaked. In the audio, Egbueje expressed her displeasure with Burna Boy who had allegedly promised to buy her a Lamborghini in exchange for a sexual relationship and failed to deliver on his end of the bargain. The tone around this scandal was notably different from what would have been the case in earlier years. Rather than shunning Sophia as a social deviant, several commentators were firmly on her side, with a common sentiment being that Burna Boy had taken advantage of her by dismissing their rather sensible arrangement and failing to honour his end of the deal. At this point, we must explore the motivations behind the reframing of these kinds of arrangements as aspirational.
The first and most obvious culprit is the Nigerian economy. With over 56% of Nigerians living below the poverty line, several women are in fact, dating for survival and look to potential partners for financial security and a sense of stability amidst the rapidly rising cost of living. Coupled with the fact that Nigerian women are, as earlier established, economically disadvantaged, relationships that involve a much wealthier ‘provider’ are seen as a sure path to upward mobility that these women would otherwise be unable to achieve. Culture researcher, Daniel Jordan Smith writes; “… many young Nigerian women allude to having more than one sugar daddy, each of whom might be encouraged to play a different role economically – a fact underscored by the playful use of the terms Commissioner of Education, Commissioner of Transportation, Commissioner of Housing, and Commissioner of Finance to describe a particular man’s contribution.”
While economic struggles and poverty are the rationale for some women’s preference for transactional relationships, several others, such as Sophie above, are not in any danger of poverty, have their own sources of income and live fairly comfortable lives. In such cases, several other factors come into play, the first of which is Nigeria’s culture of greed and money worship. Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy & Tax Reform Committee, highlighted the staggering income disparity in the country, stating, “If you earn N3.5m per annum, you are in the top 1% of Nigeria’s population, and it’s not because you are rich, it’s because others are so poor.”
This startling wealth gap has resulted in a society where the rich are worshipped, no matter the source of their wealth and social values are distorted beyond recognition due to lax law implementation and shifting moral standards which allow the wealthy to operate above society — skipping queues, evading legal consequences and getting away with impunity. In Nigeria, wealth functions as an insulator, shielding people from the dysfunctions of an unequal and unstable system. It offers dignity, respect and power, which often operates without restraint and entrenches a class hierarchy so visible and so normalised that it feels glorified.
Even to a woman who has a stable source of income, these levels of wealth are incredibly hard to achieve as success in Nigeria is rarely based on merit. Thus, women who are “knowledgeable social agents” (sharp girls) with a clear understanding of transactional relationship dynamics, seeking to attain material comforts and a social standing they cannot independently achieve, will simply use proximity to wealthier men as a means to achieve them.
The rise of social media also exacerbates Nigeria’s already prevalent wealth worship. Trends like “Quiet Luxury” and “Soft life” have transformed wealth into an identity, where the performance of wealth is as important as its possessions. Further, it is not enough that women possess this wealth — modern day desirability politics which create a hierarchy of existence and determine who deserves love, care or respect based on seemingly individualistic “preferences”, demand that for a woman to have any real value, a man must be the benefactor behind some, if not all of the wealth. This circles back to the ‘kept woman’ ideal explored earlier — in a highly patriarchal society, the true indicator of womanhood is male attention as a signifier of value. While purely love based relationships can and do exist, social expectations create the dynamic where a man who fails to reward a woman’s ‘love’ with material gifts implies that he does not value her and in failing to secure a ‘provider’, such a woman has not fulfilled the demands of womanhood.
The framing of transactional relationships as aspirational can also be attributed to the rise in choice feminism, a conceptualisation of feminism where the individual choices of women are inherently feminist because they made these choices themselves. This kind of ‘feminism’ is reflected in confectionary phrases such as; “the heels of our stilettos will stomp out the patriarchy”, “eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man” and the likes, popularized by white feminists such as Taylor Swift — pretty quips which highlight a woman’s ability to perform ‘femininity’, but wrongly assert that the performance itself does anything to combat misogyny.
It is this line of reasoning which informs the idea that ‘using’ men for their wealth is empowering and feminist in a Robin Hood-esque ‘steal from the rich and give to the poor’ way. “Scamming” the patriarchy is certainly one way of looking at feminism, but how does this improve the social or economic standing of women as a whole? How does it make women equal to men?
Transactional relationships do not exist in a vacuum, they are a choice informed by the conditioning imposed by a patriarchal society (internalised misogyny). Thus, they uphold the patriarchal status quo and do nothing to contribute to the social, economical or political equality of the sexes. If anything, such relationships instead contribute to the objectification of women, painting the dangerous narrative that sex is a woman’s major bargaining chip and that a woman’s body can easily be bought. In a society already known for misogynistic norms, this approach to relationships also results in a dangerous cycle where men’s personal insecurities around their financial suitability for relationships are concentrated into collective hostility, entrenching societal misogyny further.
While the rise of transactional relationships in Nigeria may reflect evolving social norms and personal agency, it also underscores deeply entrenched gender inequalities, economic hardship, and distorted societal values. Though some view these relationships as pragmatic or empowering responses to a difficult environment, they often reinforce the very systems they claim to subvert — systems where women’s value is still closely tied to their proximity to male wealth and validation.
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