By Abu-Taqiyah Zumo
A 9-year-old boy in a Social Studies class asked his teacher: “Mallam, what is a father?” The class laughed. The teacher cried. That boy has never met his father. The man divorced his mother when he was 2 and never looked back.
Two streets away, Hajja Beauty, 28, First Class graduate, trilingual, Hafiza of the Noble Qur’an. Her younger sister, Bintu, with SSCE result, married at 16, with her third child is a divorcee. Hajja Beauty is not “too educated.” She is a victim. The men who can marry her are either already married twice, or cannot afford a bag of rice.
You may think this is just a movie. But in reality this is the situation in Northern Nigeria, 2026.
We did this to ourselves. We turned marriage into a fashion show, divorce into a habit, and children into collateral damage. We built our society on a lie. Many families thought if you could afford a cow, a microphone, and sadaq, you are ready for marriage. That if things get hard, you can just issue “divorce” and walk away. That government can solve 50 years of family collapse with one stadium and 1000 couples, in the presence of Emirs and tens of Ulama and full attendance of Hisbah at the massive wedding.
Unknowingly this is just a national emergency dressed as a cultural problem. We are not just losing marriages. We are losing a generation. A generation whose streets are full of Almajiri and yan daba because the home that should have raised them collapsed. Our universities are producing brilliant women who will die single because the economy killed the men who should marry them. Our mosques are full of worshippers but our homes are empty.
And when the house is burning, what do we do? We call the cameras, gather 500 couples, hand them pots and mattresses, and call it “mass wedding.” As if you can cure cancer with perfume. As if you can stop a flood by sharing buckets.
Let this irritate you. The truth is we are just using religion to cover failure, politics to cover shame, and mass weddings to cover a mass disaster.
The real question is not who is to blame. The real question is: How many more homes must burn before we admit failure?
This crisis did not fall from the sky. It was manufactured by 5 forces hitting at once.
First is economic strangulation. The cost of Sadaq- dowry and weddings has tripled, but jobs have vanished. A young man enters marriage with debt and desperation. When the bag of rice costs more than his salary, “I cannot feed you” becomes the most common line in court. So men delay marriage indefinitely, and those who marry, break under pressure.
Second is the death of patience and mediation. The normal arbitration panel from both families of the wife and the husband has collapsed. In those days such panel would sit for weeks to settle a marriage dispute between husband and wife. Today we WhatsApp a divorce and run to court. Patience is gone. Social media has also sold us a dangerous gospel: independence for women without responsibility, and freedom for men without provision. Both sides now quote Qur’anic verses when it suits them.
Third is the emergency and often unprepared marriages. We marry girls at 16 with no skill, and boys at 24 with no job. By 25 she has grown fully with four children and he has not. The worldview gap becomes a divorce paper. Family provisions hardened and irresponsibility becomes apparent.
Fourth is unnecessary polygamy without justice. Islam permits polygamy but with conditions. Many husbands make additional wives without additional income and the result end is family explosion.
The fifth is state failure. Government has abandoned job creation, and now pays the price by feeding the children of broken homes through NGOs and welfare.
When the home dies, the society bleeds. The most visible wound is the street child crisis. Most Almajiri and street urchins are not orphans. They are children of broken homes whose fathers disappeared and mothers could not cope. We are raising a generation with no father, no discipline, no hope and we are shocked when they become Yan Shila.
Then there is the silent army of unmarried women. Millions of educated, religious, pious women in their 20s and 30s sitting at home. Not because they don’t want marriage, but because the men who can marry are either broke or already married. This breeds frustration, depression, and in some cases, desperation.
Beyond that is moral decay. Delay marriage and zina rises. Normalize divorce and children grow up thinking commitment is a joke. Finally, there is the economic burden. Single mothers, abandoned children, and broken families are now a line item in the state budget. We are literally paying for our failure as families with public money.
This is not “men’s fault” or “women’s fault” alone. The men abandoned family responsibility and use divorce as a weapon. Some women embraced zero-tolerance and materialism with no attempt at reconciliation. Parents push expensive weddings and early marriage with no preparation. The Ulama are mostly silent, reducing marriage counseling to one khutbah a year. And the state failed to make life affordable.
Into this mess walked the mass weddings. The governors came with the stadium solution. 1000 couples in white dress. Microphones. Sadaq paid. Refrigerators given.pots, mattresses, cash. Drones in the air. Cameras everywhere. All live on TV. They called it charity. They called it Sunnah. And in part, it is. Making marriage easy is good.
But is it working? Rarely. Because you can fund a wedding, but not 10 years of feeding, rent, and school. Many of these couples divorce within 2 years. We have turned marriage into a government program, creating dependency and zero follow-up. Mass weddings are not evil. But they are bandages on a broken bone if there is no job, no training, no counseling, no mentorship, no economic plan, and no values behind them. Just the photo.
This is not the way. We rebuild brick by brick: by creating work, by using fatwas to cut the cost of weddings, by teaching our boys how to be husbands and our girls how to build homes.
Let premarital counseling be mandatory. Let the Ulama start saving marriages apart from doing weddings. Otherwise we are just gathering people to divorce with government sponsorship
There’s need therefore to stop decorating the roof and fix the foundation. Provide Jobs; make cheaper weddings and conduct marriage classes in mosques and schools. Make counseling compulsory. Measure success not by how many we marry, but by how many are still married 5 years later.
As a forward, first, government must make marriage economically possible. That means real jobs and real wages. It also means fatwas and policy to cut the cost of weddings and kill the culture of extravagance.
Second, our Imams and schools must teach marriage as a skill. Budgeting. Communication. Conflict resolution. The khutbah on marriage should not happen once a year.
Third, premarital counseling must become as compulsory as the nikah itself. No certificate of readiness, no wedding.
Fourth, we need support systems. Skills and dignity for single mothers. Mentorship for young men. Respect instead of mockery for unmarried women.
And if mass weddings must continue, tie them to 2 years of economic support, counseling, and job training. Measure success not by the number of couples on stage, but by the number of homes still standing 5 years late.
We will not pray or shame our way out of this. We must rebuild, brick by brick. Government must make marriage economically possible through jobs and by regulating wedding costs through fatwas and policy. Our Imams and schools must teach marriage as a skill: budgeting, communication, conflict. Premarital counseling should not be optional.
We must bring back community mediation. Let elders settle matters before judges do. We also need real support systems: skills for single mothers, mentorship for idle young men, and dignity for unmarried women instead of mockery. And if mass weddings must continue, let them come with 2 years of economic support, counseling, and job training.
A nation can survive bad governance. A nation can survive poverty. But a nation that cannot keep a home together will not survive.
The divorced man, the 35-year-old woman, and the child hawking on the street are not mere statistics. They are us.
So before the next stadium wedding, before the next viral divorce video, let us ask one question: Are we marrying them, or are we preparing them to stay married?
Until we answer that honestly, we will keep burying our future — one broken home at a time.
May Allah mend our homes, and bring succour to the North and the country at large.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
