“It is sad that ignorant people are allowed to be speaking on behalf of Islam. Sometimes they even speak on behalf of God Himself”—Dr Usman Bugaje

When it comes to choosing wives, especially in a serial manner, the philosophy of Senator Ahmad Sani Yerima has always been to “catch them young” – first with the 15-year-old girl he divorced two years later at 17 and not long after, the 14-year-old daughter of his Egyptian driver he had to import all the way from Cairo. But the proclivity for cradle-snatching by the former Governor of Zamfara State has now put the Senate in the eye of the storm and with emotions running high, there seems to be no line between fact and fiction as many commentators sell their prejudices in a manner that can only further divide us as a nation.

From my understanding of what transpired at the Senate in the course of the constitutional amendment process last week, the issue that fed the current hysteria has more to do with the reputation of Senator Yerima than what the upper chamber actually decided. The clause in contention has nothing to do with the legal age of marriage in Nigeria and having spoken extensively with Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu who chairs the committee on constitutional review, I can see both ignorance and mischief in the slant of the public debate on the issue.

Section 29 of the 1999 Constitution which generated the hoopla is about renunciation of citizenship and it states: (1) Any citizen of Nigeria of full age who wishes to renounce his Nigerian citizenship shall make a declaration in the prescribed manner for the renunciation; (2)The President shall cause the declaration made under subsection (1) of this section to be registered and upon such registration, the person who made the declaration shall cease to be a citizen of Nigeria; (3)The President may withhold the registration of any declaration made under subsection (1) of this section if- (a)the declaration is made during any war in which Nigeria is physically involved; or (b) in his opinion, it is otherwise contrary to public policy; (4) For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section (a)‘full age’ means the age of eighteen years and above; (b) any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.

The purport of subsection 4 (b), which has become the bone of contention, to borrow a famous cliché, is that for the purposes of renunciation of citizenship, a married woman irrespective of her age shall be deemed to be of full age. However, according to Ekweremadu, “the Senate committee was of the view that this provision is discriminatory, especially considering that subsection 4(a) has already defined ‘full age’ for the purpose of renunciation as 18 years. That was why the committee thought it necessary to expunge the section and ensure that men and women are treated equally. It is indeed based on that principle that we recommended the deletion of the word ‘woman’ in Section 26(2)(a) and replaced it with the word ‘person’. That particular amendment was passed by the Senate. But the truth of the matter is that Section 29 does not legalize child marriage and, in fact, has been in the constitution since 1999 even though many people were not aware of its existence.”

The Deputy Senate President explained further that the subtext to the whole saga started with the antics of Senator Yerima on the floor of the Senate in the course of debating the clause-by-clause amendment process. Yerima, who incidentally is a member of the committee and had signed the same document would later seek to repudiate section 29, subsection 4(b). “What happened was that Senator Yerima never raised any objection to any of the things we decided at our retreat in Lagos and even when we arrived Abuja, we went through all the clauses together and again, we all agreed. I recall that Senator Aisha Al-Hassan (representing Taraba North) even thanked us on behalf of the Nigerian women for the decision to expunge section 4(b).”

I find that revelation by Ekweremadu rather interesting because the same Senator Al-Hassan would join Senator Zainab Kure (former First Lady of Niger State) to abstain when it came to voting on the clause. Perhaps they were afraid of Senator Yerima whose initial objection, according to Ekweremadu, “was defeated while we were taking the clauses on item-by-item basis. But in the course of discussing pension and labour there were arguments as to whether the two issues should be under different (Exclusive or Concurrent) List in the Constitution. Senator Yerima exploited my intervention to raise a fresh argument that we should revisit the issue of section 29, subsection 4 (b) on the basis of his religion. In the spirit of democracy, the Senate President decided to take the vote again. Meanwhile, Senator Yerima had gone round to lobby some of our colleagues, arguing that expunging subsection 4(b) would be against Islam.”

Whatever may be our misgivings about the inability of the Senate to expunge from the Constitution section 29, subsection 4(b), I still fail to understand how that can rationally be interpreted to mean that the upper chambers passed an amendment (or a resolution) to legalise child marriage. From what transpired, the Senate could not secure the requisite two-thirds majority because of the intervention by Yerima (aided by Senator Danjuma Goje, former Governor of Gombe), both of who played the religious cards. But the real catalyst in all the brouhaha is Senator Yerima who has come out to justify his own position on child marriage, which then makes the senators who voted along with him accomplices in the pursuit of what is clearly a private agenda. Of course, we now read about some weeping Senators claiming that in the process of voting, they actually thought Yes was No!

In the rather interesting face-off between him and the former Aviation Minister, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, Senator Yerima has defended his position on the pretext that child-marriage could promote “the attainment of Paradise” which, by his own reasoning, resides in the loins of some perverted old men. Then he would further argue: “So what can anybody tell me? I live in a city where young girls at the age of 12 have already become serial fornicators and cannot count the number of men they’ve had sex with. I live in a city where primary school children dis-virgin themselves behind toilets on Valentine day. I live in a city where young girls flood the street at night looking for men that would give them N500 to have sex with them. I live in a city where government officials pick undergraduates from University car parks with coastal buses to wild sex parties. I live in a city where abortion is so common that even a chemist shore owner can perform abortion with just N2,500.”

Whatever may be happening in the city Senator Yerima resides, what he fails to understand is that the girl-child is not a chattel created by God for the pleasure of men; she is a human being with as much rights as the boy-child. The senator also says that he can give his daughter out in marriage at age six but talk is cheap since there is no record that he has actually done any such thing even when he indeed has young daughters. But it is understandable because, as the Yoruba people would say, the hunting dog knows how to breastfeed its own child while chasing that of the antelope.

Ordinarily, this whole controversy would have been needless if we enforce our own laws in this country; which then goes to show that even if the contentious subsection 4(b) is expunged from the Constitution, it is not likely going to change anything. It is noteworthy, for instance, that section 21 of the Child’s Rights Act already forbids the marriage of persons below 18 years and prescribes a punishment of N500,000 or a five year jail term, or both to offenders. Of course the Child Rights Act needs to be domesticated by the states, and most northern states have not done that based on the same claim that it is against their culture and religion. So, while the current campaign against the Senate for “passing a child-marriage law” has been more sensational than factual, it has at least put the issue high on the agenda. Even at that, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which has been signed and ratified by Nigeria, also pegs the minimum age for marriage at 18 years.

What the foregoing means in essence is that the issue is not an absence of law regulating the age of consent with regards to marriage in our country, the real challenge is that there has been no enforcement. For instance, in Egypt, the age gap between spouses should not exceed 25 years. However, their laws also make exceptions for foreigners who must then deposit a hefty amount of money in the name of such young bride at the Egyptian National Bank after which he must sign documents at the Ministry of Justice, to guard against trafficking. It was in fulfilling those legal obligations that Senator Yerima’s marriage to the Egyptian girl attracted public attention.
All said, I think we should stop chasing shadows by dealing with the real issue: anybody who has followed the trajectory of Senator Yerima’s recent marriages cannot but notice one slant: the brides come from the children of poor (and uneducated) people. The point here is that it is only poverty and ignorance that would make parents give their under-aged daughters out for the entertainment of some old men who deliberately read their Holy scriptures upside-down. If that then is the issue, the focus of the current engagement should change. This matter is really not about religion or culture, it is about class and the manner in which the affluent of our society exploit the underprivileged to feed their personal indulgences.

Mrs. Maryam Uwais in her brilliant treatise titled “Senator Yerima and Constitutional Review” has already enumerated the health challenges associated with child-marriage as well as its sociological impacts on the society. Her thesis is that poverty and illiteracy are merely recycled (and entrenched) by child marriage and there are facts to back up her claim. What that then suggests is that until we deal with those root causes by ensuring that all our young children, whether male or female, are given compulsory basic education, at least up to a certain level, the problem will persist. The Yerimas of this world are quite aware that so long as our society remains replete with widespread poverty and illiteracy, child marriage will also continue to be a function of demand and supply.

•This piece by Adeniyi (shown in photo) originally appeared in his column “The Verdict” in today’s edition of ThisDay. He can be reached via olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Update news