by Anike Jacobs

YNaija recently caught up with controversial actor, Solomon Akiyesi, who was nicknamed “serial husband” last year after the well-publicized scandal involving him and three women and he excitedly opened up on the situations of things at present.

The Nollywood actor who recently bagged a presidential appointment for the 2015 general election, in this interview talked about marriage and mistakes young couples should watch out for. He further talked about his crush on Rita Dominic, his last moments with his mum and more.

“Don’t go into marriage unless you are able and willing to provide financial and emotional security for your wife, don’t manage anything you are not sure of as you go into marriage. Ensure. You won’t have to look for anything else in another woman, don’t love stupidly.

Don’t take any risk in the name of making anybody happy, don’t marry just because you have dated for long.

Don’t marry because your mates are marrying and to the ladies, don’t marry him if he’s mummy’s pet unless you can stand his mummy coming to your matrimonial home to decide what quantity and quality of soup you should serve his beloved son.

Don’t marry her if she’s daddy’s pet unless you are prepared to commit your marital life paying back daddy’s “investment” on his beloved daughter…or you are ready to be chased out of your home on account of deliberately or mistakenly hurting the golden daughter.

Don’t marry the first born and family cash cow unless you are ready to accept certain base lines in the scheme of things.

Don’t marry because of the sole reason of having children. The wife is not a baby factory. Don’t marry because you need a man to help you take care of your extended family…pay school fees…build your father a house or take your family off poverty lane.

Marry because you need a companion who will add value to your life.

“I WILL MAKE THEE A COMPANION” were the words that came from God when he created eve for Adam.”

Moving on, we asked him for his take on the trend on women becoming breadwinners in their homes and he insisted that it is the duty of a man to cater for his family.

“I don’t give in to a woman being the bread winner except of course she’s fulfilling her role as the helper the bible calls her and helper here does not connote being the bread winner at all. It’s not about being fair it’s about being right or wrong.  The man has a responsibility to provide not only for the wife but the entire family. The rules….and if you like….the expectations of everyone in a marriage are well spelt out.  There are also biblical injunctions as to every one’s responsibilities. Don’t forget that by design the woman is to receive from the man.   When you visit a family and you eat good soup it’s because the wife who cooked the soup equally got good money for groceries. ”

On why married men cheat on their wives, the actor said “Husband’s and wives cheat because certain ingredients for that marriage become lacking or poorly available and when you find that ingredient outside, you embrace it.

The other reason for cheating in a marriage is because of the reason for the marriage. If a woman marries a man because he’s rich. Chances are that she will look for that money else where if this one is exhausted. Same with the man who marries a woman because she’s either beautiful or rich. If your reason for marriage is far removed from biblical injunctions.

You will quite natural seek those self serving reasons outside the home when you discover this was not what you thought you asked for. And then there is the reason of who we really are. For example a womaniser is a womaniser any day. Even if you took him to church he will be sizing up other women from the corner of his eye….including the pastor’s wife.”

His definition of a happy and successful man “A happy and successful man is he who is able to fulfil his responsibilities to fellow humans, his wife and kids and to God. Once a man is able to do this without fretting or stressing then he is a success”

When asked who he’d love to date  in Nollywood, he said “None and it is not because none of them is good enough for me but they are too good to date. Nollywood has beautiful and extremely sexy women. Much as I love to work with any of them, dating is not what I think will work out. Genevieve is a very cerebral performer, Kate Henshaw has strong confidence, Rita is a beauty to behold and I love the way she walks in those jeans, she has got a talking waist line, they are all too worthy to date”

Of course, there was no way we were going to end the interview without asking him about the wedding saga and he claimed he had no regrets over it – instead the only regret he has is not being able to save his mum from death.

“I don’t regret the incident at all, the only regret I carry around in my life is my inability to save my mother from death even she begged me to. She was very sick and begged me not to let her die, she told me on her sick bed that if she died there might be a paradigm shift in my life, and truly the shift did come…..and massively too. I married in 2003 and walked out of it years later because of my impatience for deceit and lies, I tried my hands on marriage again in 2007 and I was quite comfortable and happy with that because I loved her to death until the adventure that came my way last year. I am actually happier being alone, some people are not destined to marry, I might just be one of them….I also want to admonish people to have strong facts about any issue before jumping into conclusion and making unguarded statements because of the proliferation of cheap Internet platforms.

For example all the half-wits who were throwing barrages at me because of the event of 13th April last year have not been able to prove that I was actually going to marry another woman beyond the the church drama. I’ve never paid bride price or gone to court to wed another woman after my wife….my ex wife. I’ve never taken any member of my family to any other village to go and knock on the door of another woman for marriage as a matter of fact I’ve never wedded any woman in any church. all my attempted marriages were usually hurriedly packaged under pressure and that’s were I get it wrong.

A woman shows me a little affection and I’m thinking marriage. A woman says she’s pregnant for me and I’m rushing to the alter without proper check. I trust and love stupidly. But I know mistakes are for learning and I’ve learnt the hard way but people were fast to jump into conclusions and call me names even when they didn’t know my reason for taking such unmitigated risk that almost tarnished my career and take my friends away. But within the last one year of being alone has taught me greater lessons I couldn’t have learnt as a married man. But in 2015 any tongue that rises against me again shall go dumb”

On what fans should expect from him as 2014 comes to an end, he said “I can only get better. As 2014 rolls off I will be concluding cleaning up my closet. A process I started since last year.”