Akinyelure, Ustaz Yerima And The Virgins By: Azubuike Ishiekwene on July 26, 2013 - 4:22am .  Tweet    Share . . I’m still trying to figure out why Senator Ayo Akinyelure cried on Monday. Here’s what I think we know: During the vote in the Senate to amend the law on citizenship, he voted to retain the provision that a married girl child, even one just getting off the pram, may be free to renounce her citizenship, whereas a boy child cannot do so until he’s 18. What we don’t know is whether he was mourning his error or the end of his political career. Akinyelure is obviously surprised at the backlash, especially the outrage in his constituency, where the vote has been interpreted, quite correctly, as an endorsement of child marriage. Why was he crying? It doesn’t matter how you slice it; saying that a girl child who is 8 or 13 is of full age to renounce citizenship because she was fobbed off in marriage is a vote for child marriage. Voting first and crying later does not change that. As Ayisha Osori brilliantly explained on the back page of this newspaper on Tuesday, there is in the constitution today a legitimate connection between citizenship and child marriage. Akinyelure and co. can go on arguing that it was not their fault; this particular obnoxious provision was not put there in their own time. Who cares? They’ll continue to get a deserved beating for having a chance to do right but choosing to look the other way. I don’t know what Akinyelure’s daughters or students are telling him now. How did this lecturer, educationist and polytechnic proprietor lose his marbles? I had a conversation with my 14-year-old daughter and she was quite appalled that while it is unlawful for a girl under 18 years of age to vote or drive, it is perfectly all right for her to be married off, with the additional benefit that she could even renounce her citizenship if she wanted. Would the tot still enjoy this “benefit” if she was married to a 16-year-old boy? “Dad,” my daughter said, “I guess the fact that the child could be halfway through her teenage years, while her ‘husband’ is more than halfway to his casket doesn’t matter? What about all the health problems? What about the child’s future and happiness?” It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to Akinyelure, his cheerleader Ahmed Yerima, or to any of the 60 senators who voted to keep the law that nearly one million women in the north are living with vesico vaginal fistula (VVF). It doesn’t matter to them that children who have children stand a higher risk of cervical cancer and maternal mortality. According to one report, 30 countries where between 30 and 75 per cent of underage girls are forced into marriage also include 26 of the 30 countries with the highest maternal mortality. Nigeria is, of course, on the list, with 50,000 girls dying yearly as a result of early pregnancy. In case that figure sounds like another statistic, 50,000 is the size of a graveyard almost equivalent to the capacity crowd of the National Stadium, Lagos. That obviously doesn’t mean anything to Yerima, who reportedly said, “Nigeria has many uncountable problems and none of them is early marriage.” Interestingly, Yerima, not given to any of the mushy waterworks of the Akinyelures in the Senate, also said he could give his daughter out in marriage at the age of 9 or 13 – and it’s not any of our business. Not so fast, Ustaz. Three of your fairly well known daughters are professionals. One is an accountant, one a pharmacist and one a biochemist – all of them, I’m told, are above 20. I’m sure they’re quite happy with their lives today – perhaps happier and more fulfilled than they may have been if they had been fobbed off in marriage at 13, the age of one of their father’s brides when he picked her. The world has come a long way from the 14th century when Richard II of England was joined in marriage to young Isabela of France, who was only 7-years-old. That marriage was not just to indulge the king with a virgin bride; it was also contracted in the forlorn hope that the union would end the 100-year war in Europe. If Yemen and Saudi Arabia are already considering a review of their early marriage laws, why should we pass up the chance to leave the cave? The Senate has said the matter was not even short-listed for amendment in the first place. It’s almost clear, too, from reports on Thursday that the 14-year-old statutory shame did not even come up for mention in the House of Representatives. But if 35 senators could muster the courage and good sense to vote for the deletion of the clause – 76 senators, including many from the north, had actually voted ‘yes’ in the first vote – then all hope is not lost, after all.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 06:20:28 +0000