Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
The Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, has said that most of the 100 girls that he is sponsoring their marriages are orphans and others whose parents could not foot the bills of their marriage rites.
He also said that girls were not in anyway being forced into any marriage rather they all have their suitors.
The speaker, in a statement, dismissed the rumour making the rounds that the girls who are in two categories were being given out in marriage against their wish, pointing out that over 50 percent of the girls have suitors but their parents have no money 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 suitors.
“Majority of the girls are orphans, who have lost their parents, including children of our gallant vigilantes, who lost their lives to bandits and have nobody to finance their wedding despite attaining marriage age with someone ready to marry them.
“The girls are not being married out against their will, and their husbands are not being forced on them. They have suitors of their choice, but only that their parents and relatives do not have the means to marry them out.
“According to the tradition of Hausa, you cannot marry out a girl without accompanying her with some essential needs to make her comfortable in her husband’s house, like room furniture such as beds, mattresses, and kitchen utensils among others.
“That is what the girls are lacking, and that is the responsibility the speaker has agreed to shoulder so as to relieve the parents of such burden. Their parents have been postponing the marriage for lack of resources and the speaker decided to take over it.”
According to the statement, it was one of many gestures that the speaker has extended to the people of his constituency, who are in dire need, insisting that there was no motive behind it other than to relieve the parents of the burden.
The statement added that before arriving at the decision, the speaker had embarked on a wide consultations with the immediate parents, who are alive, relations of the orphans among them, religious leaders and other critical stakeholders in the area.