Bimbo Akintola has never been one to hold back. The Nollywood veteran has carved a reputation for herself as a woman unafraid to speak her mind.
From film sets to podcasts, her voice has become an ongoing cultural commentary, sometimes startling, often divisive, always intriguing.
About a month ago, she sat across from Gloria Young on a podcast and dropped a statement that felt like a thunderclap:
“I don’t know where this idea of fidelity came from in Africa. The majority of our men cheat. I mean, your father cheated, your grandfather cheated. My father has two wives. So, I don’t know where it came from… 90% of men cheat. It’s ingrained in them.”
It was a declaration that collapsed fidelity, history, and tradition into one sweeping generalisation. The words rippled across social media, with some nodding knowingly, others rejecting the reduction.
And now, in a new interview on Talk To B, Akintola has returned with yet another opinion in the same orbit: there is a “shortage of men,” she claims, and the logical solution is for women to embrace polygamy.
These two positions, men cheat because it is ingrained in them, and women should embrace polygamy because men are scarce, raise uncomfortable but necessary questions about fidelity, culture, and gender politics in contemporary Nigeria.
Polygamy, Scarcity, and the Gender Argument
In her latest interview, Akintola pivots the conversation. Fidelity aside, she claims there is a “shortage of men,” urging women to embrace polygamy. According to her, this is both traditional and practical.
She recalls older Yoruba homes where multiple wives were the norm, but goes further, citing modern examples of women who have encouraged their husbands to take second wives, sometimes for sexual balance, sometimes for peace of mind.
This is provocative, yet it raises a different kind of question: is polygamy truly about scarcity, or is it a way to rationalise male randiness?
While it’s true that African traditions made space for plural marriages, the framing of polygamy as a solution to modern gender imbalances risks reducing women to competitors for dwindling resources; men as scarce commodities, women as bidders.
