The longest-serving Northern member in the House of Representatives from Kano state, Alhassan Doguwa, has said that the high population in the North is the reason for the poverty experienced in the region.
He recently revealed that constantly reproducing amid the high poverty rate is why the North will remain poor for a while.
Speaking recently during an interview with The Punch, he revealed that the major cause of poverty in the North is the persisting social culture and tradition that continue to make matters worse and cannot be changed easily.
According to him, while he can marry four wives and cope with the responsibilities involved, others will marry the same number of women and fail to do enough to sustain their large family.
“I think to be very frank with you, and to my own understanding, the major cause is our own social culture and our tradition. And you know, changing tradition is a difficult thing.
You look at me now, I’m married to four wives, and you know what that means in terms of responsibility. Thank God I’m comfortable. Probably my salary or my allowances could help me sustain my family.
But what of other people who have the same four or five wives but may not be doing quite well financially? So, it is all about our tradition,” he said.
Doguwa believes that religion allowing people to marry up to four wives will only lead to the high population currently experienced in the North, and if culture, tradition and religion continue to back the decisions Northerners make, the major reset needed to arrest the situation will not happen.
He insisted that as long as Northerners continue with that tradition and the culture, the prevalent economic inequality will inevitably persist.
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“For as long as my religion allows me and allows other people to marry four wives, and they continue to reproduce, the population factor will be there. When the culture does not stop it, tradition does not stop it and religion does not stop it, then, the high population in the north will continue to be our problem.
And I’m telling you, I can’t help it. I’m still happy with my four wives and I’m still producing, I’m still counting. Nobody will stop me. And I believe my other brothers in the north will not stop.
So for as long as we continue with the tradition and the culture, then our problem of having great serious economic inequality amongst our ranks will persist.
The level of poverty will also continue to be there, even though my religion tells me nobody is responsible for poverty except God. You cannot be impoverished by a colleague, you cannot impoverish me, I cannot do the same to you. So, if I’m rich, it’s from God, if it’s otherwise, it’s from God.
That is the belief we have and you know, changing this kind of tradition or values is a difficult one. So we just continue in this way, hoping that the same God that we serve will give us the opportunity to prosper. Since God allows me to marry four wives, I now look up to God to provide for me to be able to take care of my four wives and the children.
So it’s not something that you can simply offer a solution and say except we do this, we cannot get this or except we stop this, we cannot achieve this. These are things that are completely under the concept of tradition, religion and culture. So that’s just my understanding. There may be some efforts that have been made by the government,” he added.
