The Mace is a very significant symbol in the House of Representatives. It is a symbol of the dignity and authority of the speaker. In fact the house cannot sit without the Mace.
Not long ago we witnessed an international embarrassment in the Rivers State House of assembly where thugs posing as lawmakers turned the Mace into a weapon. Chasing themselves all over the place breaking heads like Motor Park touts. These are people we refer to as honorable acting without honor. They are supposed to be Lawmakers and yet they break the law with impunity.
This was a national disgrace and we are yet to get apologies for the national embarrassment. We never get any, no matter what they do “up there”.
We are yet to get over this and then Bang! The Senate struck. I must confess that when I first saw the headline SENATE OKAYS CHILD MARRIAGE, I thought it must be one of those countries in Asia where child marriage is like a norm. Boy was I wrong. The Nigerian Senate, it was ,that actually approved Child Marriage (In Nigeria).
On Tuesday 16th of July 2013, there was voting on recommendations of the senate committee on the review of the constitution.
While doing this, the senate threw out the Six year single term for the president and governors.
Autonomy for local governments was also thrown out so was the separation of the office of the attorney general of the federation and the minister of Justice.
The senate also resolved to alter section 29(a) of the constitution which stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until she attains 18 years. They deleted the age specification for women being married from the draft constitution and left the marriage age for women-wait for it-OPEN! Yes very open, which actually means they can even go ahead with booking children as little as 2 for marriage! If this is not insanity, I wonder what is. To think that this whole move was to please one of them, Senator Ahmed Sani representing Zamfara West who married a 13 year old from Egypt 2 years ago in violation of the constitution, eats me up!
I don’t want to believe what we have in the Senate are perverts.
What kind of Senate rejects autonomy for Local government and go ahead to approve Child Marriage? This is sick! Whose interest are these guys for? Granting autonomy to Local Government is obviously about grass root development-something we are in dire need of. It is about bringing governance closer to the people for crying out loud and these guys with their brains intact (?) refused to give this to us opting instead to approve sexual exploitation! This is crazy and should not be allowed.
I believe there are women in the senate and to think there was no opposition to this Barbarism from them makes me want to puke. As mothers they should have spoken out against this sexual abuse! They should have gone against this disgrace as this is a crime against women(and humanity).
Child Marriage is a violation of human rights. It is a barrier to social development as well as individual development.
Our senators were not thinking, I believe ,when they allowed this, because if they were they will know the impact this nonsense they want to allow here will cause. I just wonder what sort of guys we have representing us “up there”. This cannot be what the people want. The people can never approve of Children having Children!
This is a time where we are complaining about the decaying state of our education as well as the amount of illiteracy and our senators are busy planning to add more illiterates to the ones we already have.
Did they not think it in their heads that the education of these Children is stopped immediately they are married out? I doubt if our Senators thought about the kind of Children these Children (mothers) would end up raising. An illiterate mother bringing up a Child who might end up being illiterate because the mother obviously will have no educational values to teach the child and this leaves us with illiteracy-Plenty of it for the future. Imagine the impact this will have on the society in general.
They definitely did not think about the fact that there would be no work opportunity for these Children. What sort of leaders did God give us bikonu? These guys obviously do not know that the Children of Children always have health issues from birth. Somebody tell our senators that a Child born to a teenage mother is twice likely to die before his or her first birthday, than a mother in her twenties and above. The fact that they did not think about the mortality rate this is going to cause beats me.
Can somebody please tell our senators that girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or child birth than women in their twenties and above.
Did anybody not think in that senate that these Children they are about to marry out will be subjected to various types of torture from sexual to physical. This is an inhuman law to pass. A doctor friend of mine just told me Child marriage causes what is called Gynecological Fistula. This is happens when a Child whose pelvis is not fully developed is forced to have sex. What actually happens is, there is a hole in the vagina and bladder or rectum which results to leaking of urine and faeces. Survivors have severe physical injuries and are at risk of contacting sexually transmitted disease including HIV.
I imagine the psychological trauma that the Child will go through add this to the fact that she will be abandoned by her shameless, pervert husband and her family. Pray, is this not sending our Children to their early graves? This is exactly what our Senators voted for. I still feel so irritated. Are we going to allow this? Are we going to allow our Senators send our Children to their early graves? I guess not Please say NO to Child Marriage in Nigeria. Say NO to children having children.
Chiechefulam Ikebuiro
thalynxis@yahoo.ca
@thalynxis