Responding
to the nation-wide outrage expressed on the said passage of a Bill
legalising child marriage, the Senate said its decision last Wednesday was
“wildly misinterpreted, misreported and totally taken out of context”.
It denied
any wrongdoing.
The
chairman, of the Nigerian Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999
Constitution, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has insisted that the Senate will never
approve any legislation in support of early marriage. Ekweremadu
made the clarification on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking with newsmen on the
recent vote by the Senate on the recommendations of the Constitution Review
Committee.
We can
never support child marriage. Let Nigerians understand with us that these
issues have nothing to do with early marriage or Islam. It is purely about
renunciation of citizenship.
The
controversial clause deals with the procedures to be adopted by a Nigerian
wishing to renounce his or her citizenship. The law says for that purpose, the
person must be at least 18 years; and if the person is a woman and married, she
shall be deemed to be of age.
Ahead of
the Senate’s vote to amend the constitution last week, Mr. Ekweremadu’s
committee suggested the definition relating to marriage be deleted, and the
Senate needed 73 members to approve that proposal.
At first
vote, that benchmark was met. But a
dramatic reversal soon followed after former governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed
Yerima, protested the decision as un-Islamic, prompting a second vote in which
the Senate secured only 65 members this time, meaning Mr. Yerima won and the
section could not be deleted.
As the amendment of the constitution is a continuous
process, the Deputy Senate president said, that section will be revisited.
No comments:
Post a Comment