It is no joke: divorcees and widows totaling a hundred are set to be married off to interested men in Kano, in an arrangement spearheaded by the states “Hisbah Command”, a religious security outfit set up by the last governor and later presidential aspirant, Ibrahim Shekarau.
The forthcoming marriages would be the pilot program of what will be a regular program, designed, according to the board of the Hisbah Command, to reduce the hardship faced by women and stem divorce rates in the state.
The Commander of the Hisbah in Kano State, Malam Aminu Daurawa, had earlier announced in a broadcast that interested men and women must obtain application forms from the command.
Hisbah’s Public Relations Officer, Malam Yahya Tanko, said on Wednesday that the marriage rites would take place in batches.
He said about 20 of them had already been married off while over 1, 000 applications were being processed by the command.
Tanko said the next batch of 100 widows and widowers would soon be married.
He also said that a workshop would be organized for the men and women to brief them on the need to stay in matrimony based on Islamic guidance.
Tanko said that Hisbah was determined to wipe out all societal ills from Kano, adding that the planned marriages was one of the ways of achieving its aim.
It is yet to be seen what plans the Hisbah has for the villainous Islamic sect popularly known as ‘Boko Haram’, whose group has unleashed repeated campaigns of terror in Kano and other northern cities with daring devilry.
One of such attacks by the group left almost 200 people dead in January, stunning Nigerians who are not unfamiliar with occasional flare-ups of violence and bloodletting.