Government’s funding of mass weddings becoming popular

Mass wedding

Funding of “mass weddings” by state governments appears to be gathering popular appeal in Northern Nigeria.
In 2010, the Yobe State Governor, Ibrahim Geidam, offered to sponsor weddings, which were contracted in a particular mosque every Friday in his state. In Kano State, mass weddings are regularly funded by government to address the high incident of widowhood.
And now, the Sokoto State Government has earmarked N30 million to sponsor a mass wedding exercise, a pilot programme that would become a quarterly event after the first edition is held within the next fortnight.
The details of the sponsorship includes the screening and selection of 120 males and 120 females, according to the Commissioner for Youth and Social Welfare, Alhaji Zubairu Yaro Goronyo. Government would pay the N20,000 bride prices, while the grooms will be given N20,000 “take-off” grants.
The couples will also benefit from the donation of bedding materials, a set of furniture, two wrappers for each of the brides as well as 10 yards of brocade for each of the grooms. The primary reason always cited for this mislaid magnanimity is the need to curb social vices such as fornication and adultery.
We see this as a gross misplacement of priorities and misapplication of government funds to dabble into matters of private concern of individual citizens. It is obvious that those being targeted for this strange social largess fall into poor, perhaps, even destitute citizens.
They do not need to be encouraged to carry the burden of starting families at government expense. How long will government continue to spoon-feed such couples after the government handout is exhausted?
These people do not need to be given fish. They need to be taught how to fish. They need capacity building or skill acquisition and assistance to start their own businesses, trades or profitable economic activities, which will enable them to make money. They can then marry and settle down.
Government should channel the handouts to building human capacity in both the needy male and female groups. That is the civilised and sensible way of tackling social problems.
Besides, who says that people always engage in fornication and adultery because they are not married? How much are the various governments willing to spend to curb adultery among married people, especially the men who abandon their wives at home in search of new “conquests”?
Government’s funding of weddings is a wasteful way of spending federal allocation, which is meant to help in the even development of the country. It is like government sponsorship of pilgrimages, which many governments are now gradually backing away from.
It is this manner of frittering away public funds that results in unmanageably high population, mass poverty and destitution, which are prevalent in those same societies.