Northern Policy Expert Slams Mass Weddings, Urges Leaders to ‘Marry Skills, Not Just Couples

 

Abuja, June 17, 2026— A development expert has called on Northern Nigerian political leaders to shift from sponsoring mass weddings to investing in skills, literacy, and family planning, warning that current practices are “cloning poverty” instead of reducing it.

In an open letter dated June 16, 2026, Dr. Zainab Suleiman Buhari addressed governors, commissioners, Hisbah boards, traditional rulers, and legislators across Northern Nigeria. She argued that while states like Kano, Katsina, and Zamfara are allocating billions for mass weddings, the policy ignores the economic realities facing new families.

*“We are wedding illiteracy to illiteracy”*  

Dr. Suleiman faulted the focus on ceremonies without economic foundations. “When both partners cannot read a prescription, cannot calculate school fees, and have no trade beyond ‘survival’, we are not forming families. We are duplicating poverty. A ring does not create income. A certificate of marriage does not create jobs,” she wrote.

She cited Kano’s N1.5bn allocation for 3,000 couples, Katsina’s sponsorship of 1,000 couples, and Zamfara’s 100 couples as examples of welfare policies that treat population growth as production. “3,000 new households without land, factories, clinics, or schools is like building 10 floors on sand. The building will fall. It is falling already,” she stated.

*Street kids, malnutrition, and broken homes*  

The letter linked mass weddings without economic support to rising social problems. According to Dr. Suleiman, couples without income often have many children they cannot feed, pushing them into the streets. “Those street kids don’t disappear. In 15 years they become the statistics for crime, drug abuse, banditry, and terrorism we cry over today,” she warned.

She also highlighted malnutrition and maternal health risks, saying “when 8 mouths share 1 meal, the smallest bodies lose first. Stunting, kwashiorkor, measles, diarrhea — these are not ‘God’s will’. They are math.” On marriages, she added that “illiteracy + poverty + desperation = divorce, domestic violence, and children who grow up learning that marriage = suffering, father = absent.”

*“This is not religion”*  

Dr. Suleiman stressed that the critique was not against religion. She noted that Islam demands _nafaqah_, or the ability to provide, while Christianity teaches that those who fail to provide for their households are “worse than an unbeliever.” 

“No religion encourages backwardness. What we are doing is weaponizing religion to dodge responsibility. Piety without planning is negligence with prayers,” she said.

*Proposed alternative*  

She urged leaders to redirect half of mass wedding budgets toward practical interventions before any ceremony: adult literacy and numeracy for six months, vocational training in trades like carpentry, tailoring, solar installation, and phone repair, family planning and health education to space births, and marriage counseling on conflict resolution.

“Marriage should equal: skill + income + literacy + planning. Anything less is a photo-op, not policy,” she wrote.

*Call for foresight*  

Dr. Suleiman concluded that the North’s challenge is not a lack of faith but a lack of foresight. “The children we fail to feed today will be the men we fail to jail tomorrow. The choice is yours,” she told leaders.

“The North does not lack faith. It lacks foresight. If we want a North that leads Nigeria, we must stop producing children without infrastructure. We must stop treating population as wealth,” she added.

She signed the letter “A Citizen Who Still Believes the North Can Rise.”