Kano government marries off 17-year-old in mass wedding

A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD was among the couples who were joined together through a mass wedding programme funded by the Kano State Government last Saturday, finding has shown.

This was revealed by one of the grooms, Umar Abdullah, in one of the videos shared by News Central on Monday, noting that he is happy because it was his first marriage.

“This is my first marriage, and I’m not married widower. I married 17 years old. I’m very happy today. I married 17 years old. Thank you,” he said.

His comment came as the Kano State Government sponsored the marriage of 1,500 couples under its latest mass wedding initiative, a programme the government claimed is designed to reduce the financial burden of marriage on vulnerable residents and promote family stability.

The state announced N1.5 billion for the mass wedding programme to cover financial support for pride prices and assistance intended to help newlyweds establish themselves economically, The Hisbah Board coordinating the exercise.

The government gave the couple items including bed, mattress, bedsheets, pillows, floor mats, foodstuffs and vegetable oil. It also announced N100,000 for each bride as her business capital, and another N100,000 for the groom for payment of pride price.

The state Governor Abba Yusuf urged the newlyweds to build their homes on patience, justice, mutual respect and understanding. He also urged them to conduct their marital affairs in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad.

However, social media users have raised concerns about how a state-backed marriage involving a person below 18 fit within Nigeria’s child-protection framework.

Nwa on X wrote “Your first marriage. Government married 17-year-old child for you.”

Another User, Olayide Soaga wrote “Someone just confessed to marrying a minor on National TV.”

Other users said that unlike a private marriage arranged within a family, the union had government’s backing, raising questions about the age-verification, safeguarding and screening procedures used before people involved in the weddings were joined.

The concerns are significant because the federal Child Rights Act, enacted by the National Assembly in 2003, expressly prohibits child marriage.

Section 21 of the Act states that no person under 18 is capable of contracting a valid marriage and that a marriage contracted by a person below that age is null and void and of no effect whatsoever. Section 23 further creates offences relating to marrying, promoting or facilitating the marriage of a child.

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For years, Kano was among the states that did not domesticate the Child Rights Act. Following pressures from civil society groups and other stakeholders, including Human Rights Watch, the state government domesticated the Act in 2023.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) described the legislation as a landmark development that incorporated the principles of Nigeria’s Child Rights Act into the state’s legal framework.

UNICEF urged the government to provide the resources and mechanisms required to enforce the law effectively, but the law’s treatment of marriage has continued to attract legal scrutiny.

A 2025 peer-reviewed legal article examining the Kano State Child Protection Law revealed that the legislation defines a child generally as a person below 18 but adopts a different threshold for marriage.

The analysis of Section 16(2) says a marriage involving a girl below 18 can be permitted where her culture allows it, creating an exception to the general child-protection framework, and exposing a much deeper conflict between Nigeria’s federal child-protection standard and the operation of customary and religious law in parts of the country.

Human Rights Watch documented the conflict between the federal Child Rights Act and customary and Islamic practices in northern Nigeria, noting that some states have historically used puberty rather than 18 as the threshold for marriage.

The case comes against the backdrop of Nigeria’s persistent child-marriage crisis, as UNICEF reported in 2025 that two out of five girls in Nigeria are married before their 18th birthday. The organisation noted that child marriage remained particularly prevalent in northern Nigeria.

In December 2025, UNICEF said national data showed that 33.4 per cent of young women were married before turning 18, with the rate approaching 50 per cent in Nigeria’s North-East and North-West. It described child marriage as a human-rights violation that deprives girls of childhood, education and opportunities.

The groom who married the 17-year-old was not the only participant who spoke positively about the programme, as several grooms who exchanged vows under the initiative lauded the Kano Government for reducing the financial barriers associated with marriage.

The programme was designed to help couples who might otherwise struggle to meet the financial demands associated with marriage.

The ICIR reports that UNICEF defines child marriage as a formal marriage or informal union involving a person under 18 and describes the practice as a threat to children’s wellbeing, education and future prospects.

A child’s apparent willingness to marry also does not, by itself, answer the legal question under the federal Child Rights Act, as Section 21 sets 18 sets the threshold for a valid marriage under that Act. Section 23 criminalises the marriage or promotion of a child’s marriage.

Human Rights Watch’s investigation into Kano found that girls married at an early age often lost access to education and faced heightened health and social risks. It also found poverty, religious interpretations and discriminatory traditional norms among the factors driving early marriage in the state.

Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.