Niger State Speaker House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, has said he decided to sponsor the wedding of about 100 girls from his constituency in Mariga Local Government Area over genuine concerns for the parents.
The speaker, on Friday, pledged to pay the dowries for the bridegrooms, adding that he had procured all necessary materials for the mass wedding.
However, he received a barrage of backlash following the decision as some claimed that the girls would be given out in marriage against their wishes.
The Speaker, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and communications, Shamsudeen Binaira, in Minna, the state capital, on Sunday, dismissed the insinuation of forced marriage.
He explained that over 50 per cent of the girls, though they have suitors, their parents have no resources to meet their marriage expenses as required by their customs and traditions.
“The other categories are those that have lost their parents to insecurity in the area and have nobody to finance their wedding even though they have their suitors.
“Majority of these girls are orphans who have lost their parents, including children of our gallant vigilantes who lost their lives to bandits and there is nobody to finance their wedding despite attaining marriage age with someone ready to marry them.
“These girls are not being married out against their will or that their husbands are being forced on them. They have suitors of their choice but only that the parents and relatives do not have the means to marry them out,” he said.
Binaira explained further that “according to the Hausa tradition, you cannot marry out a girl without accompanying her with some essential items to make her comfortable in her husband’s house such as room furniture, kitchen utensils, among others.
“That is what these girls are lacking, and that is the responsibility the Speaker has agreed to shoulder and relieve the parents of such burden. Their parents have been postponing the marriage for lack of resources, and the Speaker decided to take it over,”.
Binaira pointed out that this is one of many gestures that the Speaker has extended to the people of his constituency who, he said, are in dire need, insisting that there is no other motive behind the gesture than to relieve the parents of the burden.
He affirmed that before the Speaker arrived at the decision, he had consulted widely with his constituency, including the immediate parents, relations of the orphans, religious leaders, and other critical stakeholders in the area.
