
Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke. Ref: Archivi.ng / I Said What I Said Podcast.
THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Why Nigerians Love Agony Aunts

Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke. Ref: Archivi.ng / I Said What I Said Podcast.
THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Why Nigerians Love Agony Aunts
On 04 November 1998 in P.M. News another episode of the advice column ‘Agony Aunt’ with Temi Peters was published; just like any other episode in the four years that it had been running. Beneath the column’s title was a bold white subheading in a black text box: ‘How Do I “Toast”?’. This letter, drafted to ‘Aunty Temi’, was a cry for help from a 27-year-old working-class man named Prince (whose full name and address are included in the publication, as was the culture at the time). Prince claimed to be ‘living quite well’ but he had a problem: He did not know how to toast a woman. The word ‘toast’ refers to a few other things but in this context, peculiar to Nigerians, it loosely denotes the ability to woo a person, much similar to the modern-day slang, ‘rizz’. It is reasonable to suggest that prior to the advent of social media a situation like this is one the average Nigerian man would have been reluctant to admit publicly, especially with the boldness to include his full name and address in a newspaper that circulated across Lagos and its environs.
Despite never having met her in person, there is a display of trust from Prince towards Aunty Temi, as there was for many of her readers and correspondents, and this is seen in the familial manner in which Prince ‘desperately’ pleads for a fiancée. The agony aunt column provided a unique platform, a kind of safety net, where Nigerians of all backgrounds—men and women; young and old; single, married or even those engaged in extramarital affairs—felt comfortable sharing their personal struggles. Agony aunt columns in Nigerian media, particularly the P.M. News’ column, have existed as convenient routes to addressing intimate and societal issues as well as fostering open dialogue. They have evolved from doling out personal advice and providing informal matchmaking services to ultimately reflecting the complexities of relationships and the cultural norms of Nigeria from the 90s till date.
The archival materials for this essay were sourced from Archivi.ng, an initiative founded by Fu’ad Lawal, dedicated to preserving Nigerian history by digitizing old newspapers.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE AGONY AUNT COLUMN IN NIGERIAN MEDIA
P.M. News, a small-volume publication launched in August 1994, introduced its advice column on 23 August 1994 under the title: ‘Auntie Totty: A Friend Who Relieves You of Your Pains’. The column was written by a woman under the moniker, ‘Totty’, who believed in the principle that, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’; advice she had gotten from her own mother. Auntie Totty explained, ‘Often times, the circumstances or situations we find ourselves [in] becloud our sense of objectivity because we, ourselves, are involved, we are unable to make the right decisions. We allow ourselves to be carried away by sentiments.’
Prior to P.M. News’ Auntie Totty, advice columns had long permeated the Nigerian media, specifically print, going as far back as during the emergence of daily newspapers in the late 1920s. Advice-seeking radio segments and columns run by women such as ‘Milady’s Bower’ in the West African Pilot and ‘Women’s Realm’ in Southern Nigeria Defender, which catered specifically to women though men and women alike sent in letters, allowed Nigerians to discuss their personal challenges and debate socio-cultural issues. This was primarily due to modernization and the proliferation of literacy (in English) and the opportunities it provided those with Western education in colonial Nigeria. By the 1990s, specifically in former colony cities like Lagos, with over 60 per cent of the country being Western educated, literacy in English had become a norm and advice columns catered to the day-to-day experience of the average literate Nigerian.
Readers began confiding in Auntie Totty in just one week, sharing personal issues that, under typical circumstances, might not have received non-judgemental attention in a collectivist society like Nigeria. These letters were addressed to Auntie Totty and mailed to a private mailbox in Ikeja. In the 13 September 1994 edition of P.M. News, three weeks after the establishment of Auntie Totty’s column, Joke, a civil servant living in Ikoyi, sought Auntie Totty’s advice on a particularly challenging, but all too familiar and age-old, situation. Joke, in 1990, had married her boyfriend of seven years in absentia after he moved to Holland, with plans for her to join him later. However, a year after the marriage, all communication ceased and his family claimed to have no news of him or his whereabouts. Joke expressed her frustration by asking, ‘Aunty, shouldn’t I kick off another affair? I’m 30 years old. I’m getting old.’ In response to Joke, Auntie Totty had written: ‘… you have no legal claim on this chap as he had not been present to sign any marriage document. … You are therefore as free as a bird … don’t you dare make this kind of mistake again.’
By providing a forum for individuals to seek counsel on deeply personal matters, agony aunt columns became trusted spaces for Nigerians to express their vulnerabilities and get practical advice. In a society where public conversations about sensitive topics were often—and still are—limited or shunned, these columns offered a unique avenue for addressing private issues in a general yet safe space, resonating with a wide readership across socioeconomic lines. The popularity of agony aunt columns in Nigeria grew not only from the soundness of their advice but also from the visible confidence people placed in them, including their first names and resident locations in their letters, and also from the eye-catching, often provocative headlines at the centre of these columns, which were usually pulled from the contents of the featured stories; their purpose to draw in curious readers and reinforce the agony aunt’s role as the community’s trusted confidant.
Though records of these early platforms are sparse, they were able to thrive due to the embedment of advice seeking in Nigeria’s socio-moral framework. In the complex socio-cultural weaving of Nigeria, where orature served as the primary medium for transmitting culture, history and moral guidance, it is both natural and expected that younger generations seek counsel from their elders on critical matters such as relationships, finances and personal development. These elders are typically familial figures including mothers, aunts, uncles, older cousins and close family friends who play pivotal roles in maintaining the communal and familial ethos characteristic of Nigerian society. Agony aunts, presenting as maternal and nurturing figures, provided a compelling alternative to the cultural norm of intergenerational advice giving. They offered anonymity and less judgement—which one might receive from a real aunt or family member—and their perceived openness to addressing the challenges of a younger generation navigating modernity and western influence in post-colonial Nigeria made them more influential.
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ALL’S FAIR IN EVERYTHING THANKS TO NIGERIAN AGONY AUNTS
Auntie Totty went silent for nearly a year before another iteration of the column returned to P.M. News in September 1995 as ‘Agony Aunt’, with Temi Peters at the helm. Peters ran the column for over three years before passing the baton to Yetunde Yemi-Rowland in 1999, whom the final agony aunt Chinyere took over from in 2000 before the column came to a sudden end in 2002. P.M. News agony aunts earned the trust of their readers over the years through their practical, no-nonsense approach to giving advice, offering solutions that were concise yet insightful. In just a few paragraphs, they managed to address complex issues in a way that resonated with their audience. They facilitated conversations on topics that were typically shunned in the religious and cultural settings of the late 1990s Nigeria. These agony aunt columns mirrored the social dynamics of the time, especially in relation to patriarchy, relationships and marriage.
One example from 04 February 1998 is the case of Beatrice C. O., a 42-year-old banker from Ketu, whose husband of 18 years had abandoned her and their eight children on 03 April 1997. Beatrice had written to Aunty Temi in hopes that her husband would read it and return home. This reflects the societal privilege men held, and still do, which allows them to walk away from familial responsibilities without question. In contrast, Patrick O., a 49-year-old banker from Victoria Island, wrote to Aunty Temi on 03 June 1998, expressing his deep and ongoing grief and loneliness after losing his wife of 14 years to an ailment almost two years prior, showing how men also dealt with emotional pain but lacked a culturally acceptable outlet to express their vulnerability. These agony aunt columns, nevertheless, were not without their faults. Though Beatrice and Patrick both faced common themes of loss and loneliness, which were out of their control, Patrick is met with favourable, possibly deserved assumptions from Aunty Temi: ‘I know it isn’t easy, but you just have to take everything easy…Your late wife has gone out of your life physically.’ Meanwhile, her letter to Beatrice is much more critical: ‘Are you sure you have not done something that could have made your man abandon the home?’ This points to the fact that despite the avenues that agony aunt columns provided, there were still barriers when it came to people who were allowed agency and shown care in advice seeking.
The P.M. News agony aunt column also exposed peculiar and ludicrous situations that seemed as if pulled out of a melodrama. 29-year-old Kunle from Surulere, on 30 October 1996, shared that his brother’s wife had seduced him into an affair while her husband was on a business trip, cajoling him into continuing the affair—even after her husband returned—by promising gifts. Kunle’s sister-in-law had threatened to blackmail him if he didn’t give in to her demand; he had put an end to the affair now that his brother, his pillar of support ever since their father died, was back. ‘What do you think I can do?’ he asked. Aunty Temi had responded bluntly, ‘You were too loose to have allowed this woman who is your benefactor’s wife to mess up your life. … leave the house immediately before she puts you in further problem.’ In another entry from 23 April 1997, Moses Oligoyne from Mushin had sought counsel on his feelings of regret after divorcing his wife of twelve years a year ago; he had started to miss her despite going on several dates. The new women he was dating were only after his money, and if he was given the opportunity to marry again he would choose the wife he divorced. In her reply to Moses, Aunty Temi, in her candid style, had begun with: ‘Dear Moses, you have come back to your senses.’
The column also served as an educational platform, particularly on matters of sexual health. In the 06 August 1997 edition, A.I. Ayodeji, a 20-year-old man from Victoria Island, wrote to ask if he could contract asthma from his partner after having sex. Aunty Temi had responded: ‘To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think asthma could be contracted from another person in any form. Please see a medical doctor for further explanation.’ She also proceeded to give him advice on sexual protection after stressing abstinence was best for someone his age. In another instance, a reader known as ‘The Unhappy Man’ sought advice on 12 August 1998 on how to deal with premature ejaculation. Aunty Temi’s straightforward response and question—‘Do you engage in foreplay before love-making?’—highlighted her practical approach to addressing these often-taboo subjects.
Through humour, empathy and directness, the agony aunt column provided Nigerians with a unique space to navigate personal and intimate matters, offering insight into the societal norms and dilemmas of the time. Nothing was off-limits, and all the person with the dilemma had to do was send a letter. Like S.O.A. from Ikate in 23 April 1997 who had asked for advice on her boyfriend who was giving her the silent treatment because she had urinated in his bed during a sleepover.
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FROM PERSONAL CONFIDANT TO HUB FOR ‘LOVE SEEKERS’
Occasionally, during her time with the agony aunt column, Peters would feature less of her responses, publishing, instead, the responses of readers to advice seekers as if to say, ‘They have said it all.’ During this time, the readership of the agony aunt column not only grew but diversified, with letters pouring in from all over Lagos and its environs. The column’s audience ranged widely in age, and Peters soon began permitting their romantic, professional and academic advertisements for reasons undefined. Perhaps, there was an increase in the volume of similar advertisements that went unattended or maybe some of the stories were too juicy to be left alone, but there’s no evidence to back any of this.
However, because of these changes the nature of the conversations and letters shifted noticeably, and the column became increasingly dominated by trivial requests, most of which were written by men, from a group referred to as ‘love seekers’—readers seeking love and favourable hook ups. This shift in the column reflected how it gradually transformed into a phenomenon still recognizable today: media-run matchmaking advertisements. Peters never responded to any of these love-seeking letters, perhaps because she had not been in support of her column being used for such purpose. The first time she’d received a ‘love-seeking’ request in 1995 from a spare-parts dealer in Idumota, she had chastised him, writing: ‘What sort of mess do you want to put your life into?’
Other disgruntled readers made their distaste for love seekers clear. On 17 September 1997 one reader, Bertha Otuonye, expressed her frustration with the rise of love-seeking letters in a piece to Aunty Temi. Bertha had been particularly perturbed by the flood of responses from men to a woman’s letter seeking a gigolo. Though she had initially resisted the urge to respond, with nine months passing between the ‘gigolo’ letter and hers, another Agony Aunt headline, ‘She Should Be Ready For Lovemaking,’ had triggered her decision to write. Bertha’s criticism was that love seekers were misguided. In her opinion after money and physical intimacy were crossed off the love seekers’ ideal partner list, nothing substantive would remain in their relationships.
She advised them to turn to prayer, urging that the people ‘seeking for love on the pages of Agony Aunt column,’ should go on their knees before the ‘Mighty One’, who was a source that never ran dry, knew their needs and would answer them when they asked, rather than the love seekers—who lacked ‘positive thoughts’ about themselves—relying on fleeting material or physical pursuits. Bertha’s letter had been aptly titled: ‘Love Seekers Are Ignorant’. But ironically, her complaint was surrounded by more requests, most of which Aunty Temi did not respond to, except for a disabled Lanre seeking funding for a textbook he’d written, and a Folu hoping to get in touch with a man who wrote to say he was lonely.
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THE LEGACY OF NIGERIAN AGONY AUNTS
Today, the influence of agony aunts in Nigeria extends beyond traditional media. It includes figures like Aunty Bella, which formally began on 24 August 2006, on the famous Bella Naija blog, and Jola Ayeye and FK Abudu’s I Said What I Said podcast, eleven years later, continuing the legacy, their opinions and their platforms valued by the large audiences they attract.
The presence of a measurable audience might have influenced the culture of advice-seeking and advice-giving platforms and segments over the years. Unlike the altruistic ethos of earlier columns like Auntie Totty, who believed a problem shared was considered a problem halved, today’s agony aunts operate in a media ecosystem where a problem shared can also serve as clickbait, increase site traffic and harmless gossip. On an episode of the I Said What I Said podcast, uploaded to YouTube on 1 April 2021, Ayeye and Abudu make it clear, before dishing out advice and personal opinions, that the referenced agony aunt episode had happened because of Derrick Jaxn’s advice-giving segment. The self-proclaimed relationship guru had gained notoriety for cheating on his wife.
The advent of blogging websites like Bella Naija and forums like Nairaland, established in 2005, as well as the ubiquity of social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram have further reshaped the culture of advice-seeking. These platforms have democratized the role of the agony aunt, allowing the average individual to dispense unsolicited advice, often blending entertainment, schadenfreude and personal moral commentary. Advice giving can be a mechanism for shaping societal expectations, making agony aunts—whether formal or informal—key players in cultural discourse. In deciding what to spotlight in the process of giving advice, agony aunts and other advice dispensers define socio-moral norms on relevant issues and can influence how people, both advice seekers and the audience, react to scenarios across topics such as sexual health and behaviour, and romantic and platonic relationships, among many others. In spite of this, the democratization of these roles as a result of social media also means that anyone, having acquired trust and followership, can become a key player in Nigeria’s cultural discourse.
Notwithstanding the potential biases in their advice and the lack of relevant professional qualifications, agony aunts can clearly, and have frequently, used their influence for good. They have fostered safe spaces where younger generations can discuss sensitive topics in a rapidly evolving world, especially in colloquialisms and a language most familiar to them, evidenced by the I Said What I Said podcast. The legacy of agony aunts lies in their ability to bridge generational gaps, provide counsel in a culturally resonant manner, and adapt to the evolving needs of their audiences. Whether through print, radio, blogs or podcasts, agony aunts continue to offer a vital outlet for personal expression, making their contributions far more significant than casual advice⎈
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