Serving Senator and former Zamfara State
governor, Ahmed Sani Yarima has countered critics over the role he
played in the Senate constitution amendment vote on Section 29(4)(b) widely interpreted in many quarters as an endorsement of child marriage.
Yarima denied backing child marriages, and asserted that under Islamic
law a girl was considered ripe for marriage based on her physical and
mental maturity, her age notwithstanding.
The senator was speaking,
yesterday, in an interview monitored on the early morning show ‘Kakaaki’
aired by the African Independent Television (AIT)
LEADERSHIP
reported that the Senate President, David Mark had declared Wednesday,
July 14 that the Senate will revisit the contentious Section 29(4)(b)
vote. “We (Senators) are not pedophiles”, Mark told a high-powered lobby
delegation insisting that Senators were blackmailed on religious
grounds on the constitution amendment vote which sought to delete the
“discriminatory” section 29(4)(b) from the Constitution.
Dismissing
the controversy, the Senator representing Zamfara West said insinuations
that he supports child marriages were untrue, misleading and the
handiwork of mischief-makers.
Source: Leadership
