Surrounded by a stack of new mattresses, polished furniture, and kitchen utensils, 17-year-old Zainab Mohammed has made up her mind.
In a region where education is often promoted as a route out of poverty, the teenager has chosen a different path.
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“Honestly, I prefer marriage to going to school,” she says, her face adjusting to the cameras flashing around her.
Zainab is one of 200 women—mostly widows, orphans, and the underprivileged—who were married off on Monday in a mass wedding organised by authorities in Nigeria’s north-western Zamfara State.
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For Zainab, who is not an orphan but comes from a struggling family, the ceremony is not just about romance; it is a survival strategy.
“I thank Almighty Allah… I am very happy,” she says.
The price of a bride
Mass weddings are not uncommon in northern Nigeria, a region grappling with high poverty rates and a decade-long security crisis that has left thousands of women widowed.
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However, this ceremony differed in its scale and the financial incentives associated with it.
The Zamfara State government, which sponsored the event, stated that it paid a dowry of N200,000, a significant sum in a state where many live on less than a dollar a day.
In addition to the dowry, the brides were given “starter packs” for their new lives: beds, cupboards, and a cash gift of N30,000.
For the state’s governor’s wife, Huriyya Dauda-Lawal, the initiative is about “respect and comfort.”
“We are enabling them to begin their marital lives with respect,” she told the gathered crowd, listing the government’s efforts to help the vulnerable.
‘Better than begging’
The authorities are clear about their motivation: they believe marriage is a social safety net.
Habib Balarabe, the official in charge of the state’s Zakat (Islamic almsgiving) board, stated that the weddings are a direct strategy to clear the streets.
“We are doing it to reduce the way people are going around begging,” Mr Balarabe explained. “We organise this specially for the less privileged.”
The logic is that a husband, supported by the initial government grant, provides a more stable economic unit than a single woman trying to fend for herself in a volatile economy.
A stark choice
The event in the state capital, Gusau, was a mix of celebration and grim economic reality.
While the 200 brides prepared for their new homes, the government also announced other aid packages—clearing debts for prisoners and giving small cash grants to traders.
READ ALSO: A choice between mass wedding and mass literacy, By Wole Olaoye
There was also a nod to education. Ten orphans were given mini-computers to help them learn digital skills.
But for Zainab and the 199 other women standing beside their piles of new furniture, the immediate security of a home and a dowry has outweighed the uncertain promise of a classroom.
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