Abdulmalik Sarkin-Daji | Image: Chinwe Nnadozie
The speaker pointed out that the beneficiaries were not forced into marriages but chose their partners by themselves.
By Mohammed Usman
The Speaker, Niger State House of Assembly (NSHA), Abdulmalik Sarkin-Daji, is to sponsor the marriages of no fewer than 100 indigent people from his constituency, especially girls that lost their parents and breadwinners to Boko-Haram terrorists and armed bandits.
Sarkin-Daji, representing Mariga, explained that he volunteered to sponsor the marriages out his genuine concerns that the beneficiaries (men/ women) were ripe for marriage but lacked the financial power to foot the bills as custom and tradition demanded in Mariga Local Government Area.
The speaker also pointed out that the beneficiaries were not forced into marriages but chose their partners by themselves.
Sarkin-Daji made the clarifications in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Malam Shamsudeen Lawal Binaira.
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Sarkin-Daji stated: “Majority of the girls are orphans who have lost their parents, including children of our gallant vigilante groups who lost their lives to the armed bandits and therebis nobody to finance their wedding even when they have attained marriage age and have someone who is ready to marry them.
“The girls are not being married out against their wish or that their husbands are been forced on them for any reason whatsoever, they have suitors of their choice but the only that their parents/relatives do not have the money to sponsor the traditional rites required before they are given out in marriage”.
According to the tradition of the Hausas, Sarkin-Daji said, “You cannot give out a girl in marriage without providing her with some essentials she will be taking along with her to make her comfortable in her husband’s house such as furniture, including bed, mattress, and kitchen utensils.”
Meanwhile, the Speaker has also paid the fees for this year’s Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination for about 100 candidates from Mariga Constituency.
The 100 beneficiaries will also enjoy free Computer Base Test (CBT) to enable them get acquainted with the knowledge and the use of computer before the JAMB examination in addition to the 137 indigent students from Mariga Constituency that have so far benefited from the Speaker’s scholarship programme into choice higher institutions in Nigeria.
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