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Reading about the free marriage of Ganduje to 1500 people I wasn’t that much shocked because it isn’t the first time it is happening in the North. What beats my imagination is why any Northern governor will pay 300 million naira as a dowry with other items like mattresses given to the couple to start a home.(In my place, there is even an adage that says,I CAN’T GET YOU A WIFE AND GET YOU A MAT TOO). Some people will ask me “how does that concern you?”, “are you from the North?” and all that. Yes, it doesn’t concern me but it does concern me. It does concern us all.

A country that has been labelled the poverty capital of the world with the North contributing more than 70% of it, is paying to get people married. Millions of out of school children in Kano did not attract the sympathy of Governor Ganduje nor did those who carry plate about to survive.

In no distance time, the products of these mass weddings will emerge, and as soon as they are able to walk, they are sent to different parts of the country for street begging, of course they are Nigerians, no one can send them out of any State. Some will be radicalized by religious extremists that they become terrorists. That is where, the we are all concerned.

Apart from all of the above and many more, it pains me to see children who should atleast enjoy life from 0 – 18 years, littering the streets as beggars.

We cannot fight terrorism without fighting poverty, we cannot fight poverty without birth control.