Temi Otedola and Mr. Eazi’s wedding should have been a straightforward celebrity love story. Instead, it sparked one of Nigeria’s messiest social media debates of 2025.
Overnight, her choice to take her husband’s surname became an ideological battlefield, raising questions about feminism, tradition, class, and the politics of choice.
Everyone suddenly became a cultural critic. Her wedding dress, her decision to take her husband’s name, and even her upbringing were all dissected like national policy.
What made this debate more interesting wasn’t just the subject (a billionaire’s daughter choosing to follow a patriarchal norm), but the range of reactions it inspired online.
Nigerians projected their personal beliefs, cultural expectations, and gender anxieties onto a single decision: should a woman take her husband’s name?
But beneath the noise, one thing stood out: the dangerous idea that Temi’s decisions as a billionaire’s daughter should automatically be the standard for all women. And frankly, that’s the conversation we should actually be having.
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The problem with turning Temi into a “standard”
A troubling pattern kept popping up online: “Temi dropped her famous surname for her husband’s, so why can’t you?”
Let’s pause for a second: Temi Otedola lives a reality that most Nigerian women will never experience. She can make choices, including ones steeped in patriarchal tradition, without fearing for her survival.
She isn’t going to lose access to jobs, credibility, or financial stability because she added “Ajibade” to her name. Her wealth shields her.
But when an ordinary woman makes the same choice, it can have very different consequences. Names carry weight; sometimes it’s the weight of social mobility, sometimes it’s the weight of being erased.
To act like all women’s choices exist on a level playing field is not only lazy thinking, it’s deeply classist. And some women don’t want to make those choices, and that is okay.
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Choice feminism and its loopholes
Another hot take making the rounds was from self-proclaimed “liberal feminists” who branded Temi’s name change as inherently anti-feminist.
But here’s the thing: taking a husband’s name can absolutely be a choice, even if it’s a patriarchal one.
The problem isn’t the act itself, it’s the lack of symmetry. If it were only about love, husbands would just as easily take their wives’ names. But we all know how Nigerian men would react to that suggestion.
So yes, the tradition is patriarchal. But here’s the nuance: a woman choosing to comply with or resist that tradition doesn’t make her more or less feminist. It makes her human, as she exercises autonomy in the cultural waters she’s swimming in.
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The men whose convulse when women decide to not take their husband’s name and women who convulse when a woman takes her husband’s name are in the same group chat. Clowns
— Peperemps (@Adesewaemmy) September 6, 2025
Culture doesn’t equal freedom
It’s also important to remember that women in some communities, particularly in Northern Nigeria and among Muslims, don’t traditionally take their husband’s names after marriage.
Sounds liberating, right? Except, it doesn’t erase the systemic issues women there face: child marriage, purity culture, and strict sexual control.
Not taking a husband’s name does not automatically equal freedom, just like taking one doesn’t equal oppression. It’s the larger context that matters.
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I get that Temi is rich and her parents are influential but that doesn’t mean she should be used as a yardstick for every other woman. It’s her decision to take her husband’s name, and that’s fine; it doesn’t mean a woman who is choosing not to take her husband’s name is wrong.
— Ola (@Olayiwolameenah) September 6, 2025
Nigerian men and the worship of money
If we’re being honest, a lot of the noise around Temi’s choices reveals one ugly truth: Nigerian men worship money. To many of them, a rich woman’s actions are inherently more valid than a poor woman’s.
That’s why you see men mocking “poor girls” who say they won’t take their husband’s names, while praising Temi for doing the same thing.
It’s not about morality. It’s not about feminism. It’s about class, and the deep-seated obsession with attaching virtue to wealth.
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Temi Otedola dun change name to Mrs Ajibade but poor man pikin go dey argue say she no fit change surname for any man😂
— MBAH (@Mbahdeyforyou) September 5, 2025
Feminism is about choice, not conformity
At the core of feminism is the right to choose. Whether a woman decides to keep her surname, take her husband’s, hyphenate both, or create an entirely new one, it should be about her autonomy.
The problem with the online discourse is that it strips women of that autonomy by creating a hierarchy of choices.
If Temi does it, it’s “prestigious.” If a poor woman does it, it’s “virtue.” But if another woman resists it, she’s “bitter,” “uncultured,” or “anti-marriage.”
