By Murtala Adewale
• How State Spent N3 billion On 5,000
Kano State Government recently sponsored the solemnisation of the marriage of 1,800 new couples. The elaborate two-day Mass Wedding ceremony started with the wedding fathia (Islamic rites) at the Kano Central Mosque, where an array of Islamic scholars, led by the Chief Imam of Kano, Prof. Sani Zaharadeen and Commander General, Kano Hisbah Board, Sheikh Aminu Ibrahim Daurawa, united the couples in marriage.
The second phase of the symbolic event shifted to the Government House, where the couples and their families and friends were hosted to a grand reception by the state government.
At the reception, prominent guests including former governor of the state and presidential candidate of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the 2023 elections, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; his running mate, Bishop Isaac Idahosa; Jigawa State Governor, Umar Mohammad and a host of others drawn from within and outside the state, took turns to pour encomiums on the state government for its investment on social cohesion and development initiatives.
At the event, the chief organiser of the mass wedding and Commander General of the state Husbah Board, Sheikh Daurawa, disclosed the total number of couples that scaled through the examination and those who failed it due to their compelling medical conditions.
Daurawa said the government fully undertook the funding of the entire process, which included the procurement of all the traditional wedding materials for the 1,800 couples, adding that the gesture was meant to reduce the financial burden on them.
He disclosed that the materials disbursed to them included furniture, kitchen utensils, boxes of attires, and food items as well as N20,000 cash to each of the brides as seed money to support them to start small-scale businesses.
These were aside from the N50,000 doled out as dowry to each bride by the government on behalf of the grooms. Although it was not the first time the state government funded a mass wedding, the latest version executed under the administration of Governor Abba Kabiru Yusuf demonstrated an uncommon sense of empathy towards diverse categories of women – widows, divorces, and single and searching young ladies.
According to the governor, the programme was started by the Kwankwaso administration in the state as a measure to foster social security and check growing societal ills among young people and other segments, who find it extremely difficult to meet the traditional wedding requirements.
Yusuf noted that it behooves the government to channel necessary efforts within the limits of its resources to save society from atrocities. He therefore cautioned the couples to consider the intervention as critical, advising them to hold the marital institution tenaciously as encapsulated in Islamic tenants.
“Let me therefore congratulate all of you again, as you start a new life as husbands and wives. I urge you to always remember that marriage is an act of worship (ibadah) and therefore you should live your matrimonial life in accordance with the dictates and directives of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) and the teachings of our Noble Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). The mass wedding is only one out of many success stories of our administration. This was an offshoot of the programme initiated by the previous administration of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in 2011-2015,” Yusuf said.
Recall that in 2012, the Kwankwaso administration sponsored a special mass wedding for 100 couples, majority of them widows and divorces, who found it difficult to get suitors partly due to their inability to procure the traditional materials and then stigma.
An attempt to facilitate another mass wedding of 100 couples was prevented in 2016. Although the state Police Command cited potential security threats as the major reason for preventing the event to hold, credible sources alleged that the cancellation was orchestrated by the immediate past Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
Nevertheless, Ganduje eventually floated his administration’s version of the programme, first in 2017, where 1,520 couples were wedded, and then in 2019, which saw 1,500 couples selected across the 44 councils of the state tie the nuptial knots.
Available records indicate the administrations of Kwankwaso, Ganduje, and Yusuf have so far spent about N3 billion on the mass wedding programme of about 5,000 couples.
Perhaps, this huge public resource used to cater to the societal and religious needs of the select beneficiaries could have been channeled to refurbish dilapidated public structures in the state and the acute shortage of manpower in the health care system.
To a very large extent, the mass wedding initiative has significantly promoted religious obligations, which encourage Muslims who have reached a mature stage of marriage to do so and keep their chastity. However, despite the government rationalising that it conducts mass weddings to enthrone a decent and moral society, it is not certain that state-sponsored marriage will curtail the rampant rate of divorce in the state.
Again, the state intervention has been able to rescue intending couples from the economic burden required to procure the material needed ahead of marriage. In the northern region, tradition requires the bride’s family to provide furniture, kitchen utensils, and other house fittings for the marital home. All that is demanded of the groom is the apartment to accommodate the materials. Although this norm is rather not sanctioned in Islam, it has been adopted and must be religiously followed before a marriage is consummated.
However, these housewares remain the property of the bride, such that she reserves the right to evacuate them anytime she quits the marriage for one reason or the other. Regrettably, this cherished cultural practice has hindered several proposed marriages owing to the poor purchasing power of the family of the brides.
Some analysts in the state view state-sponsored marriages as a misplacement of priority, arguing that the majority of those who show interest lack gainful employment or means to support the family.
Those who hold this opinion maintain that the government would have made a significant impact in the lives of the beneficiaries, if the monies mostly voted for the mass wedding were channeled to skills acquisition where potential brides and the grooms would learn trades that would enable them to fend for their marital homes.
There are also those who believe that the mass wedding is all about politics, arguing that it is natural for those who are treated to such generosity to buy into the Kwankwasiyya philosophy. Kwankwaso has carved a political pedigree over the last three decades that essentially hinges on building and investing in human capital development, which has earned him, undiluted loyalty across the length and breadth of the state and beyond.
Also, the critics question the sincerity of the beneficiaries, saying many of them enroll in the programme with the intention of defrauding the system.
The state Hisbah Board had uncovered some dubious characters during the previous occasion where the supposed couples agreed to divorce and share the furniture and other provisions given to them a few days after the mass wedding.
In anticipation that such characters might show interest in the programme this year, the Hisbah Board DG had warned that the government would not hesitate to recover all the provisions from any couple caught in such a criminal act.
The Hisbah had also read a riot act to the new couples to henceforth report their difference to the government for possible resolution. The DG had warned that the government would also recover all valuables both material and cash in a situation where the couples break their marital contract and it gets to the knowledge of the Hisbah.
The Guardian
