The Kano State government has spent over N1.6 billion on mass weddings in the last four years.
It has become a policy for the government of the state to undertake the conduct of mass weddings for lovers, drawing all expenses from the state coffers.
While the government usually justifies this, many people across the country consider the initiative a misplaced priority.
Now in its 12th year, the programme, known as Zawarawa in local language, has seen thousands of men and women joined together as husbands and wives on the back of the state. In 2012, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso initiated the idea. According to him, it was a device to curb increasing immorality among the population, particularly young people.
Hisbah Board, the state moral police, serves as the organising body. It does the registration, screening and selection of potential beneficiaries and subjects them to health checks to determine their eligibility. Most of the beneficiaries are said to be divorcees and widowers intending to remarry.
Here is a rundown of some of the times and the reported amounts spent on the programme since its launch. Running into billions of naira, the money covered the procurement of mattresses, furniture, kitchenware and other household materials for couples.
In 2013, the pioneer batch of the couples walked down the aisle with the state spending over N278 million on 1,111 weddings. Since then, there has been a marked increase in the number of couples wedded each year.
The process of coordinating the 2017 edition of the mass wedding commenced in the last quarter of 2016. When it was finally achieved, the government had reportedly expended N200 million. This time, the number of beneficiaries was 1,520.
With a little drop in the number of couples, the government announced in 2019 that the year’s edition gulped over N300 million. The administration of Abdullahi Ganduje at the time stated that the event was meant to reduce the high number of unmarried youths in the state, which has the largest number of out-of-school children in the country.
A few months after his assumption of office, Governor Abba Yusuf approved N854 million for the 2023 edition of the mass wedding, causing a fresh debate among many Nigerians on the propriety of such expenditure. This latest batch benefitted 1,800 couples.
In the four years mentioned above, the government spent N1,632,000,000 joining people of different age brackets from all the 44 local governments area of the state in matrimony.
While the details of the spending are not public, it was reported that it covered N20,000 business grants to each couple and payment of N50,000 as a dowry to each bride.
There is, however, a caveat. According to Hisbah leadership in its reported statements, any beneficiary of the mass wedding who seeks divorce on flimsy excuses will return all the government spent on their match-making.
Many economically-disadvantaged parents in the state depend on the state to organise the event in order to marry off their daughters to their husbands. Regardless of who or which political party is at the helms of affairs, the state has spent money on the programme since its inception.