Child Marriage

Courtesy: Google/ image 41.com

There has been an ongoing constitution amendment at the National Assembly. One of the provisions which came up for deliberation at the Senate, an arm of the National Assembly, was the deletion of Section 29 (4) of the constitution on grounds that it allows child marriage in Nigeria.




Surprisingly on Wednesday 17th July 2013, the Senate, reversed the vote in favour of the deletion of the provision which allows under-age marriage.

Section 29(4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides:

"any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age"

Note here that the Oxford dictionary 7th Edition defines a woman to be:

"an adult female human", (emphasis mine).

Furthermore, under the said constitution "full age" was defined to mean, eighteen years and above. 

Therefore, it is not in doubt that the drafters of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria intended that a marriage to a female under the age of eighteen should be deemed lawful.

The act of the upper chamber of the National Assembly has brought about an outcry from the general public as some view this as offensive to public morality.

It was also reported that a body of female lawyers of Nigeria (FIDA) has raised their voices against the actions of the Senate.

A girl child is an individual on her own and should not be forced into marriage. She is entitled to freedom of choice. Therefore she has the right to be educated and to decide on maturity whomever she wants to marry.

It is my humble view that child marriage is barbaric and not far fetched from paedophilia.

Note also that one of the greatest gifts of God to mankind is free will and by continuing to legalise child marriage, it means we are indirectly legalising suppression and oppression of the girl child.

Let's all raise our voices against this action of the Senate. It is high time the Nigerian girl child is respected.