For years, Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo has built much of his public work around helping young people understand love, relationships and marriage.
So when the relationship coach turned his attention to the growing difficulty of finding a suitable partner, his message was about the way people approach relationships.
But this time, the conversation did not end with advice about love, character or marriage. It developed into finding a potential partner with membership options, mentoring, assessments and, at the highest level, a ₦700,000 annual fee.
That development has since raised questions about where the line lies between helping people navigate modern relationships and putting a price on access to a potential partner.
Commercialised Relationships
The conversation began on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, when Okonkwo took to X to share his concerns about relationships in the present generation.
“I feel for the men of this generation,” he wrote, arguing that relationships had become so commercialised that it was almost impossible for a young man to find true love.
He followed the post with a comparison between dating when he was younger and what he believes happens today. According to Okonkwo, men once only needed to get a girl’s phone number. Now, he said, some men are confronted with financial expectations even before a relationship becomes serious.
“When we were young all you had to get was a girls phone number but now all they want to send is their account number,” he wrote.
He added that men are now expected to pay for things such as rent, school fees and transportbefore they are taken seriously. His argument was not simply about the cost of dating. It was about what he sees as a shift from genuine connection to financial expectations.
And that concern appeared to provide the backdrop for what he offered next.
From The Problem To Mentor To Marry
In another post on August 25, Okonkwo turned from the problem to a possible solution. He addressed men who felt relationships were beyond their reach because they were not wealthy, as well as men who wanted to meet Christian women who had been properly mentored.
He revealed there was now a platform for them. The relationship coach went on to promote Mentor To Marry (MTM), a platform that describes itself as a guided marriage-preparation and matching community for Christian singles seeking intentional, faith-based marriages.
Okonkwo also pushed back against the idea that every woman approaches relationships from a financial perspective.
“I can assure you that not all women are in relationship for business,” he wrote, adding that there were good women on the platform looking to connect with serious, godly men.
The Mentor To Marry is presented as more than a conventional dating website. The platform says the process begins with eight weeks of mentoring classes, assessments and surveys, followed by access to its matching journey. Members can browse profiles and receive recommendations depending on the membership level they choose.
It is also specifically aimed at Christian singles. Reports on the platform’s rules state that people using its matching services must be at least 25 and must identify as Christian. They can be unmarried, divorced or widowed, but must accurately disclose their marital status. The platform also has rules against harassment, fraud, catfishing, sexual exploitation and financial exploitation.
There is even a free singles community for people who are interested in marriage but are not ready to join a paid membership. It offers teachings, materials, community interaction and updates about the MTM journey.
So, at least by its own description, Mentor To Marry is designed to prepare people for marriage before attempting to match them. However there is the price.
₦70,000, ₦350,000 or ₦700,000?
Mentor To Marry has three paid membership levels, each offering a different degree of access and support.
The Regular package costs ₦70,000 a year. It includes the eight-week mentoring programme, assessments and surveys, limited profile browsing, an accountability system, five weekly chats and access to a country-based matching pool.
The Premium package costs ₦350,000 annually. It expands access with unlimited profile browsing, monthly profile recommendations, priority access to coaches, global profiles, private groups and 10 weekly chats.
Then there is VIP, priced at ₦700,000 per year. It includes everything in the Premium package, as well as a dedicated matchmaker and coach, priority access to the platform’s founders (PK & PM), 15 weekly chats, off-platform introductions, profile protection and access to global profiles.
The ₦700,000 figure quickly became the part of the platform that attracted the most attention.
But there is an important detail that can easily get lost in the debate: paying ₦700,000 does not guarantee that a member will find a partner, receive mutual interest or get married.
The platform states this clearly on its website. In other words, the money pays for the level of mentoring, access, matching support and other services attached to the membership. It is not, at least according to the platform’s terms, a payment for a guaranteed spouse.
That distinction, however, did little to stop the reaction online.
“He that subscribes ₦700k finds a wife”
By August 27, the conversation had moved beyond what Mentor To Marry was designed to do and towards what some Nigerians saw as a contradiction in Okonkwo’s message.
The criticism that followed was not sugarcoated. If Okonkwo’s complaint was that relationships had become too commercialised, why should access to a platform designed to help people find relationships cost as much as ₦700,000?
One netizen took Okonkwo’s own words about women allegedly asking men for money and turned them back on him, pointing out the irony of criticising financial expectations while asking members to pay ₦700,000.
Another questioned why someone would need to spend that much money simply to find a partner who would not be interested in his money.
Others took a more practical approach, arguing that someone who could afford ₦700,000 might simply have used the money for some of the expenses Okonkwo had complained about like rent, transport and school fees.
The jokes were even sharper. One X user twisted the familiar biblical saying, “he that finds a wife finds a good thing,” into: “he that subscribes 700k finds a wife.”
Another commenter questioned whether people who were described as “not rich” could realistically afford the membership fee.
Others went further, accusing Kingsley Okonkwo of commercialising the very thing he had just complained was already too commercialised. Similar reactions were documented across social media after the platform’s pricing became public.
Not every reaction was about Okonkwo alone, though. One netizen argued that both young men and women contribute to the difficulties in modern relationships because of what they described as misplaced priorities.
So, Is The Message Really Conflicting?
There are two different conversations sitting beside each other. The first is Okonkwo’s concern that money has become too central to modern relationships, making it harder for people to find genuine connections.
The second is his answer to that problem: a structured Christian matchmaking and marriage-preparation platform where singles can pay for different levels of mentoring, access and matchmaking support.
The pricing is what created an awkward question around Okonkwo’s original message. For critics, it looks like another example of relationships being turned into a transaction, only this time, the transaction is for access to a system designed to help people escape the very commercial pressures Okonkwo was warning about.
For supporters, the argument could be different: if the platform provides months of mentoring, assessments, personal coaching, matchmaking and introductions, then the fee may simply reflect the cost of providing a more specialised service.
Either way, the debate that began with Okonkwo lamenting the cost of modern relationships has now become a debate about the cost of finding one.
