Anambra’s version of Kano’s 100 brides

All this was before the ceremony. After the ceremony which has been designated the “First Phase”, I had the opportunity to enlighten myself on the details of both the matchmaking and the wedding.  I have learnt that the state paid the bride prices on behalf of the grooms and supplied basic household furniture including, of […]

All this was before the ceremony. After the ceremony which has been designated the “First Phase”, I had the opportunity to enlighten myself on the details of both the matchmaking and the wedding.  I have learnt that the state paid the bride prices on behalf of the grooms and supplied basic household furniture including, of course, mattresses. I also learnt that many of the grooms did not turn up for the Nikkai at Kano Central Mosque. This was put down to delays through traffic snarls for many coming in from outside the municipality. The Hisbah Committee which is Kano’s “Holy Police” and the mediators of the whole exercise have come out to warn that divorce will not be tolerated just in case some freeloader thinks he has been provided a free lunch or, more appropriately, free paw-paw to ravish and walk away. In light of my full enlightenment now, the question is whether l still believe it was a worthwhile venture. The answer is, Yes. But l wouldn’t advise my state government to do it.

As l ruminated over Kano’s bazaar, my creative instincts tried to play with a similar scenario in Anambra State. The correct title of this piece should therefore have been “Anambra’s imaginary Version of Kano’s 100 Brides”. The putative Anambra event would have been dead on arrival. It would go against the people’s values and worldview. In Anambra’s cultural milieu, a man should get a wife for himself and pay the bride price as a show of chivalry and a guarantee of the marriage’s viability. I suspect this is the reason for the high bride prices and low divorce rates in that part of the country. In fact, bride prize will be the more apt phrase. To curb these exorbitant ransoms, many communities have made regulations pegging their levels according to the qualification of the bride. You can have something like a degree holder, N10,000; diploma, N8,000; NCE, N7,000 and WAEC/NECO, N5,000. It is no laughing matter. I have not had opportunity to ask these Price Control Boards what happens where my unlettered daughter is the community belle while your PhD-holder daughter will cause a baby to cry with her looks. But this is by the way.

What matters is that both Kano’s matchmaking and Anambra’s price control are trying to solve the same problem but in different ways. They are both trying to make it easier for eligible bachelors and enforced spinsters who are discouraged by the steep requirements of marriage to come in through the lowered bar. It remains to be seen whether the Kano solution will not recreate the same problem it is solving. I will explain. Part of the natural disincentive to male-generated divorce is the economics of starting all over again with a new wife. Now, if one knows that bride price and “kayan aure” are assured, does this not incentivise divorce? Perhaps this is what made the Hisbah to warn that divorce will be difficult.

In Anambra, a government-arranged-and-paid-for bride will be stigmatised. On the side of the groom, he will be ridiculed for marrying a “government wife” and the more mischievous will make lewd deductions from that. More fundamentally, a government-paid-for wedding will go against the people’s adage that you don’t marry for a man and buy him the matrimonial mat (bed) as well. This saying is at the foundation of the people’s psyche and permeates their consciousness. It is an offshoot of the acclaimed industry of the Igbo. On the side of the bride’s family, they would almost be ostracised by their kit and kin who would accuse them of giving their daughter to government. I can imagine the mischievous ones asking about “our in-laws, the government”. In effect, the community would have been denied the cups of palm wine they would drink on their daughter’s head. And that will be worse than being pregnant in one’s father’s house. There would be no introductory visits when uncles from both sides interact with undertones of pride from the prospective bride’s family and chivalry from the groom’s family.

There is therefore no comparing the Kano event with a putative one in Anambra. It is like light and darkness or darkness and light, ( not meaning to make any value judgement). But herein lies the crux of this piece: it is perfectly within Kano’s prerogative to do what they have done. It is also within Anambra’s prerogative not to be compelled to follow Kano’s example. I imagine that Kano will resent the popular women’s meetings in August at which wives of state governors in the South East dole out donations for charity and development projects. That would also be within Kano’s prerogative to regard it as a waste of “tax payers’ money”. If other aspects of our federation are working this autonomously, there would be little complaint. It is implicit in a federation that the federating units have peculiar attributes which they don’t intend to give up. A good federation should be one in which these units are allowed to get ahead with their lives while the central authority regulates the over-arching inter phases like trunk ‘A’ roads, waterways, railways, common currency, defence and  external relations. The present situation where the federal government dabbles into things which should be on the exclusive list for local governments is part of our bane.

The recent brain wave for almajirai education is one of them. While university, technological and post-primary education were expressly mentioned on the Concurrent List, it keeps silent on primary education. By implication of Sections 28 and 29 of Part ll of the 1999 Constitution, the federal government is not expected to dabble into primary education. Its current brain wave with the almajirci is therefore misplaced. The federal government should not also play the meddlesome interloper with the organisation of Christian and Muslim pilgrimages except to under guard their foreign relations and security aspects. For Sokoto State to recently spend over N400 million in renovating their hajj camp and seek for a refund from the federal government is therefore quite cheeky but understandable within the context of the patronage system being promoted. These days, governments are involved in birthday parties, naming ceremonies, burials and a lot of other things with more personal resonance. Nigerians will not complain if these happen within the state or local government. The popular logic is that every state should see to the financial resources accruable to it.

Ekunno, books editor and proof reader, wrote from Abuja