KAN0 — The Kano State Government is facing a wave of public criticism following viral social media posts highlighting the stark contrast between multi-billion naira state-sponsored social initiatives and the deteriorating infrastructure of local public primary schools.
Loading ...The conversation gained traction after a prominent social media commentator, tweeting under the handle @BishopPOEvang, shared a video of a severely neglected primary school in the state, drawing immediate comparisons to recent government spending on religious and social welfare programs.
“This is a primary school in Kano state… The state that recently gave billions of naira for Hajj pilgrimage and another billions of naira for mass weddings. It’s crazy!” the post read.
The Contentious Spending: Mass Weddings vs. Education
The online outrage follows the mid-June 2026 announcement by the Kano State Hisbah Board that the state government had approved ₦1.5 billion for a mass wedding scheme targeting 3,000 beneficiaries (1,500 couples). Under the “Auren Gata” social intervention initiative, the government provides essential furniture, food items, a ₦100,000 dowry support for grooms, and a ₦100,000 business empowerment grant for brides.
While the administration of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf has defended the mass wedding scheme as a vital socio-economic intervention to support low-income families, promote moral stability, and curb vulnerability, civil society data paints a worrying picture of competing priorities.
According to a review of state budgetary allocations by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Kano State’s ₦1.5 billion allocation for mass weddings vastly eclipses targeted educational interventions, such as the ₦135 million allocated for transforming the lives of out-of-school and married adolescent girls—representing less than 10% of the marriage budget.
Public Reactions and Infrastructure Deficits
Kano currently grapples with one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in Nigeria, alongside a severe deficit in basic school infrastructure, where pupils in rural and semi-urban communities frequently learn on bare floors in roofless classrooms.
The viral post has sparked intense debates among Nigerians online:
- The Critics: Many argue that allocating multi-billion naira funds to short-term social events like mass weddings and subsidy sponsorships for religious pilgrimages (Hajj) amounts to misdirected priorities when foundational sectors like primary education are collapsing.
- The Defenders: Conversely, supporters of the state government argue that mass weddings act as a direct poverty-alleviation mechanism for highly vulnerable widows, divorcees, and indigent youths who cannot afford the high costs of marriage, thereby preventing social vices.
As the pictures and videos of Kano’s dilapidated classrooms continue to circulate, pressure is mounting on the State Ministry of Education and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to match its massive social spending with an aggressive overhaul of the state’s primary education system.
