On slippery slope to legalised paedophilia

By Emmanuel Edukugho
The Yerima Doctrine: When a girl has seen her menstruation, develops breasts and has pubic hair, she is mature to be married.

Not many people would have thought a time would come when paedophilia would be celebrated in Nigeria. But that seems to be the case with the Senate's much-touted bid to legalise child marriage.

[caption id="attachment_406021" align="alignnone" width="412"] Senator Ahmed Yerima[/caption]

Specifically, the Senate voted in support of a resolution to amend the provisions of Section 29 (4b) of the 1999 Constitution. Section 29 (1) states: “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.”

Subsection (4a) states: “Full age means the age of 18 years and above,” while (4b) says: “Any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.” But with the proposed amendment, a married underage girl of 10, 12, 13 or less is deemed to be an adult.

Despite the Senate's plans to expunge the section which makes a married woman an adult, the proposal did not sail through because proponents could not get the 2/3 majority vote required.

"We wanted to remove it but failed. We were a total of 101, 85 voted and about six or so abstained There was hardly any dissenting vote, but it got mixed up with so many issues and didn't get the required 73 votes anymore," said Senate President David Mark.

That situation was, however, shortlived. At the intervention of some powerful Northern senators, with Senator Sani Yerima as the arrowhead, things changed. Yerima, former governor of Zamfara State, is alleged to have married a 13-year-old Egyptian girl.

“Yerima brought religious sentiments to the Senate, misled the Senate, intimidated everyone for the northern senators of Islamic faith to have their way. I was in Kano and Katsina and saw girls in hospital with Vestico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) abandoned with stench and their lives at stake, due to early pregnancy,” said Mustapha Mohammed, a political analyst on radio.

Senator Yerima had argued against Subsection 4a of the 1999 Constitution because the Islamic law permits marriage to girls below 18 years. Under the said law, underaged married girls are adults by virtue of marriage.

Some days after, it dawned on one of the Senators who voted for the resolution, Ayo Akinyelure, that he had been misled. The senator claimed he thought he was voting against child marriage, and wept while explaining his predicament to his constituents at a Town Hall meeting in Akure, Ondo State.

His words: “I can never support such a barbaric and wicked bill. I am sorry for this costly mistake. I actually voted in error. I can never support a bill which is not only retrogressive in nature but will also subject the girl child to pain and anguish.”

While the global and national quest for girl child education gathers momentum, the Senate seems to be throwing a spanner in the works by passing a resolution that could stultify women empowerment.

Indeed, many feel the country will be in peril if the practice of taking underaged girls as wives gains ground. After all, many of the female ministers gracing the President's cabinet would not have assumed such lofty positions if they had been given out in marriage as early as 12 or 13 years old.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy, when asked on a radio programme about the Girl Child Marriage Bill, seemed to be against it.

“I am a woman and totally support empowerment of women. Letting girls go to school is good for the family. Health improves, education improves. There is no sentiment about this. Research studies have shown that to educate girls is the best way out of poverty,” she asserted.

Meanwhile, the Child Rights Act 2003 which defines a child as “anyone who is below the age of 18 years,” also guarantees universal free education to every child, including girls. The law stipulates five years' imprisonment for any person who marries a girl under 18 years and prohibits child labour.

In the same vein, Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child, to which Nigeria is signatory, defines a child as “every human being (male or female) below the age of 18 years” and stipulates that the education of the child shall be directed to:

*The development of the child’s personality, talents, mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.

*The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

Similarly, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the child stipulates in Article 11 that (1) Every child shall have the right to education.

It recommends the preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, tolerance, mutual respect, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, tribal and religious groups.

At a World Conference on Women held in China (Beijing), it was determined that equality of access to and attainment of educational qualifications are necessary if more women are to become agents of change. The literacy of women is key to improving health, nutrition and education in the family and empowering them to participate in societal decision-making.

All of that notwithstanding, discrimination against girls regarding access to education persists in many countries including Nigeria, owing to customary attitudes, early marriages/pregnancies, sexual harassment and inadequate schooling facilities.

A nation of paedophiles

By Femi Fani-Kayode

Senator and former Governor Ahmed Sani, the Yerima Bakura, has finally had his way. The Nigerian Senate has bowed to his will and agreed to be silent about the age that young girls can get married in Nigeria. What this means once it is followed through and enshrined in our laws and Constitution is that girls that are as young as nine years old, provided they are deemed as having been ‘’physically developed enough’’ by their suitors, could be lawfully bedded and married in our country. That is the sordid level that we have now, as a people and as a nation, degenerated to. I weep for Nigeria and, perhaps more appropiately, I weep for the Nigerian girl-child.   Yet we have no choice but to live with this new reality and to accept it as it is. After all, our representatives in the sacred halls of the Senate were not sensitive enough or ‘’man enough’’ to shoot down the whole thing, to stand firmly against the unholy agenda and to say boldly and firmly that, ‘’come what may’’, our children must be protected from sexual deviants and reprobates.

[caption id="attachment_343525" align="alignnone" width="412"] David Mark presiding over Senate plenary[/caption]

And since the Senate, in its infinite wisdom, has now endorsed the “Paedophile Charter”, which  essentially  seeks to make it lawful and constitutional for  very  young girls  to get married and to have sex, it is my view that we have now become a nation of perverts and paedophiles. Every Nigerian should bow his or her head in shame because what the Senate  did  and seeks to do in the future, by beginning the process to amend our  Constitution in order for it to cater for the filthy appetite and godless fantasies of child molestors and sexual predators is sordid, ungodly and unforgiveable.

Surely, we ought to be seeking to protect our children and not seeking to bed them. Yet it appears that not everyone shares our outrage and collective sense of shame. One Uche Ezechukwu made the following contribution which went viral on the social media networks and which I think speaks volume.

According to him, whatever was done in the time of old can as well be done in modern times - no matter how crude.

I am appalled by these words. The truth is that I have never heard such a self-serving and specious argument in defence of the philosophies and beliefs of  Senator  Ahmed Sani, who married a 12-year- old Egyptian girl, as this one. Ahmed Sani himself could not have argued it better. Yet I think that it is an utter shame. And this is more so because the individual that is putting the argument is supposedly a Christian. The Old Testament of the Holy Bible prescribes ‘’stoning’’ for adultery but that does not mean that Christian countries, or indeed secular states like Nigeria, should stone adulterers.

Neither does it mean that we should preserve the institution of slavery or crucify petty thieves simply because the Holy Bible endorsed both practices in the Old Testament. We must accept the fact that the interpretation of biblical and koranic provisions are evolutionary and are ever changing. Jesus Himself said ‘’laws are made for man and not man for laws’’. The suggestion that paedophilia has any place in any modern and decent society simply because it was once practised in the distant past is not only a despicable argument but it also does not make any sense. After all, cannibalism and child and human sacrifices  were once widely practised and were held as being perfectly acceptable throughout the world as well but that does not mean that we should practice any of those terrible vices today.

The young man, Uche Ezechukwu,    who appears to be defending child rape in the name of islam, should either let someone lay with and ‘’marry’’ his own six or seven-year-old daughter or he should seal his lips forever and stop trying to defend the indefensible. His assertions, and I daresay those of Senator  Sani and anyone that shares their primitive views, are not only utterly immoral and reprehensible but they are also intellectually dishonest. I say this because the truth is that there is NO Muslim country in the world that has adopted the “paedophile charter” where six or seven year olds can marry and be bedded except for possibly Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Every other Muslim country in the world, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, Senegal, the Sudan, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Qatar, Bahrain, Dagestan, Albania, Bosnia, Somalia, Algeria, Libya, Mali, Azerbijhan and Syria, have, specifically, banned child marriage, paedophilia and child rape in their various constitutions and laws and some have declared it ‘’repugnant’’, ‘’unacceptable’’ and ‘’unislamic’’. Are these people not Muslims too?

Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a noble, pure, honourable and ancient faith that seeks to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in society, including children. No one should use the misinterpretation of its provisions to try to justify or rationalise what is essentially depraved, shameful, disgusting and barbaric behaviour and the most sordid and filthy expression of sexual deviance and perversion. Even animals do not marry or bed their own infants. The bitter truth is that paedophiles have no place in any civilised society.

I am constrained to say that in the light of their “yes” vote to child marriage and their green light to paedophilia, every single member of the Nigerian Senate should bow his or her head in utter shame and should be compelled to offer their own infant and under age daughters for marriage. I repeat, they have turned us into a nation of perverts and paedophiles.