CHILD MARRIAGE: MATTERS ARISING

Upset by Senate bid to peg official
marriage age in Nigeria at 18, northern
youths, yesterday, lashed out at the
lawmakers, warning them not to stoke the
embers of religious war over the
controversial legislation.
The Senators had last week voted in favour
of amending the Nigerian Constitution to set
the marriage age at 18, a decision that was
promptly challenged by former Zamfara
governor, Ahmed Yerima, who described the
decision of the lawmakers as anti-Islam.
Apparently joining forces with Yerima, who
also initiated Sharia in his state when he
was governor, Arewa youths asked the
Senators to desist from taking action on the
matter so as not to further heat up the polity
along religious, ethnic and political lines and
create avoidable cold war.
The President of the Arewa Youth Forum,
Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said in a statement in
Abuja, yesterday, that the Senators had
missed the point in amending the law and
exposed themselves as people who were
confused on what to do to justify their
presence in the upper chambers of the
National Assembly.
“The approach by the Senate to this matter
shows how grossly insensitive and poorly
equipped they are in the rudiments of
legislative functions and totally insensitive to
the critical challenges Nigerians are facing
as a people,” the AYF leader said.
“The Senate must be told in plain terms
since it has lost focus, that their core
function as parliamentarians is not to
debate, moderate or decide religions for
Nigerians, or to divide Nigerians on
Christian-Muslim basis or North and South
factions.
“They must also be made to know that their
function does not include breeding
religious war from their politicization of the
Constitution Amendment exercise but to
make laws for peace, good governance,
stability and indivisibility of the Nigerian
Federation as contained in Part II, Section
Four (1,2,3) of the 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The senators must be told that what
Nigerians expect is basically principled
oversight functions to address insecurity
tearing the country apart, the increasing
unemployment rate, collapse of health,
education, agriculture and dilapidated
infrastructure.
“Another expectation of Nigerians from the
Senate is to address monumental corruption
being perpetrated with impunity by elected
public office holders and top government
officials that has stifled Nigeria any
meaningful development in Nigeria for
decades.
“But we are sad to note that the Senate has
been painfully reduced from that honoured
pedigree to a mere religious moderation
centre and place of petite issues that tend to
divide the citizens along religious and
ethnic lines and not an arm of government
that should confront our national
challenges.
The youths warned the lawmakers to
abandon the attempt to further instigate
friction in Nigeria by ensuring that every
Nigerian has the religious Freedom to
practice their faith without harassment,
limitation and intimidation.