Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, has declared that only virgins should be considered brides, arguing that any money demanded for a non-virgin under the guise of bride price amounts to extortion.

Omokri made this known on Sunday, in a lengthy post shared via his official X handle.

According to him, many Africans have misunderstood and misapplied the concepts of dowry and bride price, insisting that they are not interchangeable and have different origins and meanings.

“There is a huge difference between a dowry and a bride price.

“However, in this part of the world (Sub-Saharan Africa), we often use the terms interchangeably but they are not the same.

“A dowry is the money and property given to a female child on her wedding day by her parents, which she takes to her husband’s home. It becomes the joint property of both the husband and the wife.

“Dowry is practised in parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This practice aligns with the Biblical injunction that a wife is a helper to her husband, not a burden, Genesis 2:18”, his post partly read.