Nigeria: No, Governor of Nigeria’s Rivers State Hasn’t Set Up a ‘Marriage Monitoring Team’

“Marrying in Rivers State without having up to N5million is illegal,” begins a message doing the rounds on Facebook in Nigeria. N is the Nigerian naira.

The message claims that Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state in the Delta region of Nigeria’s far southeast, has set up a “Marriage Monitoring Team” employing 10,000 young people as a “Marriage Task Force”.

It ends with: “The Monitoring Team is to ensure any Rivers Man willing to marry must have at least 5 Million Naira or a property in the equivalent of the stipulated amount.”

But does this marriage monitoring team really exist? We checked.

‘Spurious and morally offensive’

The message doesn’t say where or when Wike announced the task force, or even why. And it hasn’t been reported by any credible Nigerian news outlet.

Instead, local news report that the Rivers state government has dismissed the claim as false.

The reports quote a statement by the governor’s media aide: “The government considers as spurious and morally offensive, the viral report alleging that the state had ordered that any Rivers man willing to marry must have at least N5 million or a property in the equivalent of the stipulated amount.”

The claim is false.

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