Social media influencer Reno Omokri has advised bachelors in the country against paying exorbitantly for bride prices.
In a statement on X on Monday, Omokri lamented the exorbitant bills would-be grooms pay to their prospective in-laws to marry their daughter.
Omokri mentioned that it is alien to African culture for in-laws to demand “drinks like Martell VSOP and XO, designer wear, foreign exchange, and expensive jewelry” as part of items for the dowry.
Omokri noted that “when Aliko Dangote’s daughter married, her bride price was ₦500,000. Please fact-check me. And the wedding ceremony itself was modest and respectable, demonstrating the moderation that can only come from a highly developed culture.
“You are going to marry a woman whose parents live in an uncompleted building in a village, and they are asking you to bring ₦3,000,000 and fulfill a long list of demands as bride price? Reason the matter, my friend.”
“As a man, if you are getting married anywhere in Africa and your in-laws are demanding drinks like Martell VSOP and XO, designer wear, foreign exchange, and expensive jewelry, just know that that is not a customary or traditional marriage,” he added.
Describing it as “modern-day extortion by criminally minded people,” the social media influencer advised, “It is in your best interest to rethink that marriage.”
“A broken engagement is better than being entrapped by heartless industrial money-seekers. Whatever they are asking you to pay is just a down payment.
“If you marry that girl, they will squeeze the life out of you with their demands. If someone dies, you pay. Someone is born; you pay.
“When someone starts school, you must shake your body. You are not an in-law. You are an in-money person, and you will not have harmony,” he added.
Arguing that high bride prices are alien to African culture, Omokri added that “the African bride price list should not be more than a reasonable amount of money.”
“Our ancestors were not that greedy. And the items they are demanding from you are not African. They are foreign. Mostly from Europe. And, therefore, it could not have been part of any native law or custom. These are just opportunists trying to use you for poverty alleviation.
“The African bride price list should not be more than a reasonable amount of money, and then things like kola nuts, livestock, palm oil, agricultural produce, and in the Ghana area, gold (because gold has always been abundant in precolonial Ghana).
“Ask yourself this question. If truly the bride’s price in their custom is running into millions, how come the bride’s parents live in a rented house or modest, uncompleted building? They ought to be wealthy.
“The truth is that the father married her mother with ₦5, and now they want you to marry their daughter with ₦3,000,000. To them, they are negotiating a business, not a marriage,” Omokri wrote.
Urging men not to pay such fees for already disvirgined girls, the social media influencer, however, mentions that, “If this were a virgin, then perhaps ₦3,000,000 could be demanded. But ₦3,000,000 bride price for a girl that was disvirgined with urgent ₦2k? Tufiakwa!”
The former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan urged men not to “be so desperate to marry that you do not see the trap you are entering and the alternatives at your fingertips. You are a successful young man. Your type is rare.”
Omokri, the self-acclaimed table shaker added that “there are more beautiful young women than there are successful young men. Sit back. Take your time and marry where you will have peace, not where your in-laws want a piece of your wealth.”
