The Senate has defended its decision to retain a controversial section of the constitution that seems to support child marriage, asking Nigerians to be calm and understand that the section has nothing to do with marriage, but instead citizenship.

The Senate said Nigerians had nothing to fear as it will never support child marriage, a subject at the centre of the controversy over Section 29, subsection 4(b) of the constitution.

That section details guidelines for a Nigerian to renounce his or her citizenship. Part of the law says the person must be at least 18 years. But if the person is a woman and married, the section continues, she shall be deemed to be “of age”.
An attempt by the Senate last week to deletethe second definition having to do with a married woman, as part of its ongoing constitutional amendment, failed after a member, Ahmed Yerima, claimed it was un-Islamic.

The failure has sparked intense public anger,one of the most sweeping, against a decisionby the National Assembly in years.
Nigerians have called for a reversal of the decision that will see the section deleted, saying retaining the provision, which has been in place since 1979, gives backing to child marriage and other abuses.

“This has nothing to do with child marriage; we will never support child marriage,” said Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who heads the review committee, said.
Mr. Ekweremadu deplored how even a “respected national daily” communicated wrongly to Nigerians that the section in question stipulates that the Senate was proposing to reduce the minimum year of consent from 18 years to nothing.

“This, as you are aware, is totally untrue,” hesaid on Tuesday.
The Senate said its effort at removing that section from the constitution in the first place was not informed by marital consideration, but that it was intended to maintain gender equality by making sure anything that grants separate guidelines for men and women, was deleted.

“In doing its work, the Senate committee on the review of the 1999 constitution went through the constitution to fish out and recommend for amendment other provisions such as Section 26(2)(a) and Section 42(1) deemed to be discriminatory against Nigerian citizens,” said Mr. Ekweremadu.
He said the section can still be revisited sinceconstitution review is continuous

http://premiumtimesng.com/news/141543-senate-denies-child-marriage-wrongdoing-says-law-may-be-revisited.html
SOURCE- www.metronaija.com/we-will-never-support-child-marriage-senate/

Good na now una come. Mek una enjoy dis now wey una brain don dey work. Tight toto kill aboki there!

Its just a means of passively giving support to child marriage.
Cos this explanation means that the 13 year old wife of Yerima can vote whereas a 17 year old unmarried can't.
They are saying if u want ur 7yr old daughter to attain the constitutional 'full age' just give her out in marriage
That section needs review

sainty2k3: Its just a means of passively giving support to child marriage.
Cos this explanation means that the 13 year old wife of Yerima can vote whereas a 17 year old unmarried can't.
They are saying if u want ur 7yr old daughter to attain the constitutional 'full age' just give her out in marriage
That section needs review

It mean yarima married an underage who can vote. The fact that she is underage and married does not make her an adult even if she is to be regarded as one. It means yarima still broke the law by marring an underage.

we can't be decieved any longer

We hope this is not just hypocrisy?

Then Arrest Senator Yerima and sentence him... SIMPLE!!!!!!

Hi guys, the section under consideration considering the citizenship clause has been controversial and has made Nigerians to refuse the usual complacent nature of ours, however having watched the senate sitting yesterday it was clear that Sen.Yerima and Sen.Goje were both bent on the senate revisiting the issue but I can say affirmatively that the Senators were never in support and will never be in support of that inhumane act of child marriage let's be careful of what we hear from people to avoid misinformation. We stand and say no to child marriage... Meanwhile the section under question has also being misunderstood by the senators themseives the constitutiton says anyone that is of full age must have attained 18years of age so why on earth would they say anyone who is married is deemed to be of full age? Even if that means the person must be 18years and above. We go school na and we understand the use of english. My people we aren't fools. Thank you.

Who are they decieving?

U better do before we come over and beat you to coma...

Ah! God save these senators ooo..

Because what happened exactly on the 16th of April 1874 in Old Benin would have repeated itself.

Useless bunch of Senators.

Nigerians (especially southerns) are silly sonuvabitches, i swear to to god they are. Why all the chaos about what concerns you not for god's. Mtchew bunch of phony, dirty slobs.

Were they testing the might of the masses in the first place?

chidindufrank: Good na now una come. Mek una enjoy dis now wey una brain don dey work. Tight toto kill aboki there!

u don dey cra.ze.So na guinness u sabi give demabeg give them acid make dem go die for one side...afterall there days are numbered

I'm not surprised, just disgusted!

Better oh

Sincere Bigot: .

na North fit you..ode

Diz pipo funi oooo,hu ar dey tryin2 confuse or fulmtcheeeeew''....
Anouncement:2maro na my betdy jare....filin lyk a child......

Dnt mind dem jahwe.. ... . . . . I was d one dt sign it

THIS IS NIGERIA. .

I WILL NOT STOMACH HYPOCRISY.

Lifebender:
na North fit you..ode

guy.. Wetin i do for ur papa na??...

E be like sey u jus smoke Ewedu finish abi?

i laugh in swahili

These people are just contradicting themselves and the nonsense law they made.

It is very simple and plain English.

A girl is deemed to be full of age once married. This simply means that, even if she's 2 years because she's married, that makes her an adult.

What else is there to make noise about? I attended my English classes wella so they should stop defending their twisted fantasies.

old preverts.

See the as them they contradict themselves.
Last Bullet:
Any girl that's not 18 should not be allowed to vote even if she was married from the womb!

spongeback:

Thank you.

Misinformation galore.

Many of those screaming childnotbride could have saved their breath on 29 (4) and looked for the relevant section to attack if they as much as READ the legislation in question. But then since a vast majority of Nigerians DO NOT READ, coupled with the Senator Yerima beef & the bandwagon effect (me too i'm talking, or i'm among), its not hard to see why so much misdirected noise was made over that legislation.

Even on nairaland here, some people were still writing epistles and stating categorically that "Nigeria wanted to introduce a law allowing child marriage" when the issue at hand was actually the removal or retention of a certain clause in a section devoted entirely to citizenship and which in actual fact had to do with giving an edge or not to women who were under 18 but married.

It is also not surprising why our leaders have continued to do nonsense, get away with it and still get voted again by people. WE DON'T READ. We never bother to find out just how much cra..p or otherwise we are getting from the leaders.
I hope that from now, especially by 2015, Nigerians will for once actually use their active campaign mentality for something good rather than relying on sentiments as usual.

HoldenCaulfield: Nigerians (especially southerns) are silly sonuvabitches, i swear to to god they are. Why all the chaos about what concerns you not for god's. Mtchew bunch of phony, dirty slobs.

Who's gonna translate what this guy wrote?

Adex097:
Who's gonna translate what this guy wrote?

The guy dey fast...

Please am i the only one seing this salient trash? Southerners should alarted because this is a delibrate attempt in augmenting the northerners votes in the general election hence thier molested children wives can vote which the southerners wil never encourage.