(By Mairo Danlami)
The much-awaited voting on
recommendations of the Senate Committee on the Review of the
Constitution took place Tuesday with the parliament throwing out the
recommendation of a six-year single term for the president and
governors.
However, the one that particularly
struck Passnownow’s attention was the resolution by The Senate to alter
Section 29 (a) of the constitution that stipulates that a woman shall
not be qualified for marriage until she attains the 18 years as they
deleted age specification for women being married from the draft
constitution and left the marriage age for women open.
While deleting the section from the
draft constitution yesterday, the Senate claimed that a woman is deemed
to be “full of age” once she is married irrespective of the age she did
so.
The parliament, which had earlier
retained this section by its voting, opted to alter it in submission to
the alarm raised by Senator Ahmad Sani (Zamfara West), who claimed that
the provision which stipulates a certain age for women before getting
married, was at variance with Islamic law.
After a moment of controversy, Senate
President David Mark asked his colleagues to vote afresh on the
provision, a situation that eventually went in favour of Sani, who,
thereafter, thanked the Senate president and his colleagues for
supporting his motion. It is worthy of note that Sani had two years ago
married a 13-year-old Egyptian in violation of the constitutional
provision.
As it stands, I feel real pity for girls
in the north. Even though most of them don’t get ‘mature’ before
getting married, it’s only going to get worse. What does a thirteen year
old girl know about womanhood? Has she even understood her own body
make-up? One only wonders if there were no better things to amend in
that constitution.
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