Sawt Falasteen - Nigerian conservative city turns to online matchmaking for love

Many young women in northern Nigeria's conservative Muslim city of Kano marry as early as 18.

After waiting for years for a suitor, Aisha is frustrated and has turned now to enlist the services of an online matchmaker site to find a husband of her dreams: rich and educated.

Matchmaking websites are booming in Kano, blending traditional methods with artificial intelligence.

"This is the right place to ask for help in finding a person to marry," Aisha, using a pseudonym, told AFP inside Northern Halal Marriage online matchmaking office.

"It is not every man who sees you that will express his love," said the soft-spoken college graduate, adding online is "the best way to find true love".

She's trying her luck after some of her friends found their dream husbands through online matchmaking.

The five-month-old site, one of several that have sprung up in the city, has attracted 1,000 clients and garnered around 10,000 followers across social media platforms, said Jaafar Isah Shanawa, its 27-year-old CEO.

With four staff, the platform accords clients privacy by modifying their pictures using AI and changing their real names.

The concealed details are only shown to interested clients when they visit the office in person after paying a registration fees.

- Looking for second wife -

"Men are afraid to speak to women on the streets because they think they are respectful people of integrity," Shanawa said.

His clients are mostly elite: professionals and business-owners.

Cultural dispositions makes it "difficult" for women to meet men on the streets or at work "to give them attention", said Shanawa, adding searching for love online "makes it easier and accessible to a lot of people".

Muhammad Siraj Suleiman, 41, has been a client for the past month looking for a second wife.

Shanawa has put the university lecturer in touch with two women he chose from the portal but none met his requirements after meeting them.

"I have been given a third contact and we have started courtship," said Suleiman.

Three-monthly renewable subscription contracts range between $6 and $54, with the fees reflecting the social class and educational level of the matches being sought.

Traditional Hausa society stresses background checks on lineage, morality and family reputation before marriage.

Kano imams also insist on medical checks for intending couples.

However, online matchmaking platforms like Shanawa's don't provide background checks because they only act as a "bridge" connecting those wanting to marry.

"When our clients meet and feel they are a match, our job stops there and it then becomes their responsibility to make background and medical checks for themselves," Shanawa said.

- Queen of matchmaking -

Matchmaking is a tradition in northern Nigeria dating generations within families, friends or close social units.

Over time, the tradition expanded and parents take the pictures of their daughters they want to marry off but have no suitors to a traditional matchmaker to find them a lover.

Population explosion and the pressure of work which limits socialisation among people has made matchmaking "more popular and attracting more people," said Asabe Abba Yarmaishinkafi, a Kano matchmaker for 25 years and head of an 85-member matchmakers association in Kano.

With a population of around 16 million, Kano is Nigeria's second most populated state after Lagos.

"It seems like there are more women than men and they all want to get married.

That's why the matchmaking was expanded to online," said Yarmaishinkafi, 50, and mother of five.

"This is why the whole matchmaking business is booming," said Yarmaishinkafi who also runs an online matchmaking portal.

With the proliferation of smartphones, parents send her pictures of their daughters via WhatsApp which she shows to her male clients.

Unlike the online matchmaking platforms, Yarmaishinkafi conducts "thorough background checks" on her clients, provides marriage counselling and settles marital disputes all for a one-off $4 fee.

Now, known as the "queen of matchmaking", she has over the years matched more than a 1,000 couples.

Only 11 out of the marriages she matched ended in divorce, a huge feat in a city with the highest divorce rate in Nigeria, according to the morality police, Hisbah.

Trader Anwar Dahiru Abdulmalik, 25, arrived just at Yarmaishinkafi's office, is looking for a match two years younger, tall and fair in complexion from a middle-class background.

"This one... is appealing to me and she is within the age bracket," Abdulmalik pointed at one, after scanning through dozens of pictures.

"But I have to wait until we meet in person and see if we match."

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST