*Photo: Prof Kehinde Yusuf*
A press release, issued by Ohaeri Osondu Joseph, Special Assistant, Media, to the Minister of Women Affairs, and carried in full by Channels Television on 14 May, 2024 stated as follows: “The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs has said that the proposed plan by the Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, to organise a mass marriage for the 100 female orphans in the State on May 24, should be investigated so as to ascertain their ages, consent as well as preparedness for the union.”
The press release continued: “While acknowledging the good gesture of the Speaker aimed at alleviating the suffering of the impoverished by pledging to pay the dowries of the bridegroom and in the procurement of the materials for the mass marriage, Barrister Kennedy-Ohanenye observed the need for the Speaker to consider the future of the children by finding out whether they prefer marriage to education and empowerment. … According to her, by prioritizing education and empowerment over early marriage, the cycle of poverty and inequality that plagues orphans will be broken from their lives, thus enabling them to marry husbands of their choices and further reducing cases of gender based violence and out-of-school children which are usually the resultant effect of such unions.”
The press release then declared: “Barr Uju also stated that in line with its mandate under the Child’s Rights Act, the Ministry has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and sought a court injunction to put a hold on the sponsored marriage until further investigation is carried out with a view to ensuring that the welfare of the orphans are adequately covered.” One of the things implied in the press release is that the Minister was acting prior to ascertaining the facts of the event she set out to attack.
Meanwhile, a sobering piece by Rasheed Akinkuolie, titled “Mass wedding controversy in Nigeria”, in The News magazine of 22 May, 2024 notes as follows: “In Nigeria, cultural and religious differences influence marriage practices. In Northern Nigeria, where the majority of the people are Muslims, mass or combined weddings are often organized for matured daughters, even at the family level, if there are many of them. It is convenient, time saving and will minimize the cost of organizing multiple marriages at different times.”
Akinkuolie notes further: “There are compelling reasons for mass weddings in Northern Nigeria today. The Boko Haram insurgency has claimed the lives of thousands of young men, displaced millions of people from towns and villages and dislodged farmers from farm lands. This has disorganized the society, making the normal process of organizing marriages between two consenting mature man and woman difficult. This system may return at a more auspicious time. Meanwhile, mass wedding of this kind will enable the young women involved to have shelter, protection, food and a home to raise children, even if the arrangement is not perfect.” Mass weddings could therefore, in a sense, be said to be guided by the Shakespeare-popularised principle that desperate diseases are cured by desperate means.
In this regard, Akinkuolie observes: “The Honorable Minister, who is a Christian from the South East of Nigeria, where marriage is a big lavish personal event for the family and bride, may be shocked at the idea of wedding 100 couples at the same event. Her responsibility now is to ensure that the girls are not too young for marriage and those, who are still in school must be allowed to continue with their education. Those who are not, should be enrolled in schools or sponsored to learn a trade in a vocational school.”
Before the profound counsel, the Minister had advertently or inadvertently lifted the lid off pent-up anti-North and anti-Islamic stereotypes and prejudice, and so-called analysts seemed to be competing with themselves in deploying derogative epithets such as “commodification” and “paedophilic mass weddings”.
Ironically, the most apparent index of the commodification of women is in changing their names to their husbands’ names upon marrying, like a book the husbands have just bought. This kind of commodification of women is the affliction of Westernised or ‘educated’ Nigerian women. I hope that this is not the case with the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye.
Incidentally, the kind of Northern females whose case the Minister has been fighting so impassionedly are not required by their culture to change their names after the mass wedding, and they are not likely to do so.
In this regard, Chimamanda Adichie was reported to have said as follows in a post by “Emeka Gift Official on X”, on 21 May, 2024: “I didn’t change my surname to my husband’s surname because I love my surname, and all my documents bear my father’s surname. I don’t have the strength to run around to change it. People often tell me that I am abusing Igbo culture by still bearing my father’s surname. I laugh when I hear people say this. But the fact is that those women who bear their husband’s surname are the ones abusing Igbo culture. In pre-colonial Igbo culture, women didn’t bear their husband’s surname; they bore their father’s surname. Everything changed when the British colonized us. We then abandoned our own culture and followed British culture.”
Women who resist the retrogressive Westernised marital renaming practice are sometimes made to go through a lot of pain. In a WhatsApp reaction to the article in this column titled “Marital renaming, cultural actors and cultural onlookers” on 28 January, 2024, a male Professor of distinction posted as follows: “There is a female senior academic I know who rightly retained her father’s name after marriage. An Islamic scholar, she maintained that and resisted the pressure of her colleagues that it was because she didn’t respect her husband, which was just sheer blackmail. But the situation changed when she registered her children for school. As there was no correlation between her own name and her children’s surname, she had to pay more and lose the benefit of rebate for staff members at the University School. The economic pressure of having to pay more than her family ought to pay made her to grudgingly go the compounding way. But I personally resent those inelegant compound surnames.”
Other women are going through this needless pain in the hands of ignorant, self-esteem-deprived Westernised public officials. Another woman’s experience was narrated by her husband as follows in reaction to the female Professor’s experience: “It’s a pity that a woman who decided to do what is patently more beneficial to her has been subjected institutionally to this ‘harassment’. When my wife had our first baby and she insisted that the boy’s oriki should be used as his last name, it created some furore in the maternity ward. One of my neighbours, who was like an elder and who was also a nurse in the teaching hospital, was then approached by the busy-bodies and asked whether I really loved the woman and wanted the baby. He came home to tell me he had a difficult time persuading them that I was a loving husband to her and fully accepted paternity for the baby. Coming to the issue of compound names, it’s an unnecessary baggage.”
Addressing such institutional female-traumatising experiences is one of the issues that should engage the Ministry of Women Affairs. In this regard, it is commendable that the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, intervened to stop the burdensome requirement for all women across the country, who marry and change their names, to come to the Nigerian Immigration Service Headquarters in Abuja to update their records. The Punch of 2 January, 2024 carried a report titled, “Name change: Stop asking women to travel to Abuja, minister tells NIS.”
Specifically, the Minister is reported to have said: “There is one stupid thing I have seen and it is that a woman gets married, changes her name, and then she has to come to Abuja all the way from say Kaura Namoda or Enugu just to come and effect a change of name in her passport. It is absurd. … With the new reforms, you don’t need to travel to Abuja to change your data. Everything will be online.’
With respect to the age of the potential brides, the Minister of Women Affairs did not ascertain whether they were of marriageable age. However, in a television interview of an apparently very mature woman who attended one of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidential campaigns in the Northwest, when she was asked her expectations from the government if the candidate won, her reply was that she looked forward to the sponsorship of her wedding. So, when I considered Minister Kennedy-Ohanenye’s precipitate actions, I wondered whether she had ever encountered that kind of woman.
I have had cause to note, in relation to impassioned reactions to the planned mass weddings, that mass weddings do not necessarily cause mass divorce. If that had been the case, the United States, where mass weddings are not practised and where women marry husbands of their choice, should have been the global model for marital stability. However, the following US divorce statistics do not support this. According to statistics by Just Great Lawyers, in a document titled, Divorce Statistics and Facts in 2021, “Fewer people are getting divorced, but fewer people are getting married, too. As a percentage, the crude divorce rates in the aforementioned years were: 49% in 2000, 44% in 2019.” In a similar vein, Wilkinson & Finkbeiner, a firm of lawyers, in a study titled, “Divorce statistics: Over 115 studies, facts and rates for 2024”, noted: “Almost 50% of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce or separation.”
Just Great Lawyers reported as follow with respect to the five most common reasons for divorce in the US: “According to a study conducted by Certified Divorce Financial Analyst professionals, lack of commitment or incompatibility was easily the top factor leading to divorce. In the survey: 43% of respondents cited lack of commitment or incompatibility as the cause of divorce, followed by infidelity/affairs at 28% and money at 22%. Other factors, such as domestic violence or addiction (5.8%) and arguments or communication (1.2%) were less likely to cause divorce.”
What is clear from all of the foregoing is that public officials need to avoid presumptuousness and precipitate actions. With respect to the expression “mass weddings” which some use with an ostensibly negative intention, the practice is more accurately “subsidised wedding” or “assisted wedding”.
So, it is gratifying that, all said and done, the Minister of Women affairs has seen the need to view the idea more constructively and has accordingly pledged to assist the women to make a success of their marriages.
