Nigerian actress Chinkemkasimma Cassidy Chukwuma is taking her storytelling beyond the screen with the release of her debut fiction novel, Husband Is Useless, scheduled for 27th August 2026. The title alone has already started conversations online, which is exactly the point.
Chinkemkasimma has appeared in Nollywood productions including Not Perfect Date and featured in the reality web series Sparks Tribe. With this novel, she is introducing herself to a completely different kind of audience, one that reads rather than watches, and she has chosen not to ease them in gently.
The book follows Folasade Mary-Margaret Ajani, a woman whose complicated relationship with the idea of marriage begins in childhood and takes her through two marriages across decades, moving between Lagos and Anambra State from the late 1980s onwards. Sade has always believed that husbands are useless. The contradiction at the heart of the story is that she eventually finds herself married twice. What the novel explores is not whether she is right but where that belief came from and what it costs her.
That is a more interesting question than the title might initially suggest, and Chinkemkasimma appears to know it. The book is described on her Instagram page as a "loud, messy, humorous, and unfiltered Nigerian portrait of womanhood". It sits inside a conversation about patriarchy, gender expectations, and the pressure placed on women to endure difficult marriages, all of it filtered through a character who is contradictory, fully formed, and deeply rooted in Nigerian cultural reality.
The title has also arrived at an interesting cultural moment. The phrase became widely recognisable online after an old Nollywood soundtrack containing those exact words resurfaced as a TikTok trend in 2025, with actress Regina Daniels using the audio in a video featuring her Ex husband Ned Nwoko and triggering a wave of reactions. There is no indication that Chinkemkasimma's novel is connected to that trend, but the renewed familiarity of the phrase means a Nigerian audience recognises it immediately without needing an explanation.
Early signs of traction are already visible. A TikTok user independently added Husband Is Useless to their reading list, prompting Chinkemkasimma to share the discovery on her social media with visible surprise that the novel was already travelling beyond her immediate promotional reach. Separate Facebook discussions around the book have been urging people to read it before forming opinions based on the title alone, which suggests the title is already doing what a good title should: making people react before they even open the first page.
The physical edition is available through Selar and the novel is also listed by Sona Books, which carries an advance review copy. For Chinkemkasimma, the book represents something more than an expansion of her public profile. Acting requires inhabiting characters written by someone else. Fiction gives her full control over the world, the voices, and the consequences. Husband Is Useless is her first major statement on her own terms, and she has chosen a subject almost guaranteed to keep people talking long after the release date.
Husband Is Useless is out on 27th August 2026.
