An Open Letter to Northern Nigerian Political Leaders

By Dr. Zainab Suleiman

To: The Governors, Commissioners, Hisbah Boards, Traditional Rulers, and Legislators of Northern Nigeria

From: A Concerned Citizen

Date: June 16, 2026

Subject: Stop Cloning Poverty: Marry Skills, Not Just Couples

Esteemed Leaders,

I write not to insult, but to confront us with a truth too bitter to keep swallowing.

This year, Kano has approved N1.5bn for 3,000 couples. Katsina is sponsoring 1,000 couples. Zamfara, 100 couples. Mass weddings are paraded as welfare. But sirs, let us ask the hard question: What exactly are we wedding?

1. We are wedding illiteracy to illiteracy

When both partners cannot read a prescription, cannot calculate school fees, and have no trade beyond “survival”, we are not forming families. We are duplicating poverty. A ring does not create income. A certificate of marriage does not create jobs.

2. GDP vs Womb Count

Our GDP grows when we produce goods, services, and ideas. But we celebrate population growth as if it were production. 3,000 new households without land, factories, clinics, or schools is like building 10 floors on sand. The building will fall. It is falling already. You cannot eat GDP. And GDP cannot feed children born into homes with zero economic base.

3. The Street Kid Factory

Marry two people with no income → have 6 kids → cannot feed them → children hit the street. Those street kids don’t disappear. In 15 years they become the statistics for crime, drug abuse, banditry, and terrorism we cry over today.

We are not having babies. We are manufacturing future headlines for NBS and UN reports.

4. Malnutrition is killing our children like chickens

When 8 mouths share 1 meal, the smallest bodies lose first. Stunting, kwashiorkor, measles, diarrhea — these are not “God’s will”. They are math. Calories in < calories needed = death. Our under-5 mortality rate is the verdict on our choices.

5. Broken homes from day one

A wedding does not cure unemployment or trauma. Illiteracy + poverty + desperation = divorce, domestic violence, and children who grow up learning that marriage = suffering, father = absent.

Terrorism does not start with ideology. It starts with hopelessness. Boko Haram, bandits, cults — they do not recruit PhDs. They recruit boys who were “produced” but never raised.

6. This is not religion

Islam demands _nafaqah_ the ability to provide. Christianity says “he who does not provide for his household is worse than an unbeliever”. Our tradition says “know the family you’re joining”.

No religion encourages backwardness. What we are doing is weaponizing religion to dodge responsibility. Piety without planning is negligence with prayers.

7. The women and the future we ignore

Mass wedding + zero family planning education = women’s bodies broken by back-to-back pregnancies. Maternal mortality is the hidden tax we don’t budget for.

When 7 kids share 0 books, public schools collapse into daycare centers. Mental health dies under shame and hunger. And we pretend we will “fix it later”.

The deepest cut for us ,

We are not cursed. We are making choices with consequences. Marrying poverty to poverty and calling it “empowerment” is like pouring petrol on fire and calling it rain.

So what is the plan, leaders?

N1.5bn for dowry, furniture, and N100k “capital”… then silence. No skills training. No literacy classes. No job placement. No follow-up.

The real plan seems to be: “Push the problem 18 years forward and let the next governor handle the street kids.”

Here is what would change everything:

Take half that budget. Before any wedding:

1. Adult literacy + numeracy: 6 months. If you can’t read, you can’t budget.

2. Vocational training: Carpentry, tailoring, solar installation, farming tech, phone repair. Give skills, not just furniture.

3. Family planning + health education: Not to stop births, but to space them so mothers and children survive.

4. Marriage counseling: Teach conflict resolution. A home without peace is a prison.

Marriage should equal: skill + income + literacy + planning. Anything less is a photo-op, not policy.

Sirs, we in Abuja see the result daily: beggars at Area 1, almajiri at traffic lights, mothers selling sachet water with babies on their backs. That is not “the poor”. That is the child of the wedding we cheered 10 years ago.

The North does not lack faith. It lacks foresight. If we want a North that leads Nigeria, we must stop producing children without infrastructure. We must stop treating population as wealth.

Give us leaders who think right even when there is no election. Give these couples more than a ceremony. Give them a future.

The children we fail to feed today will be the men we fail to jail tomorrow. The choice is yours.

Respectfully,

A Citizen Who Still Believes the North Can Rise

Dr. Zainab Suleiman Buhari