Senate Okays Marriage for Underage Women In Nigeria?

The much-awaited voting on recommendations of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution took place yesterday. And our dear Senate has okayed marriage for girls as young as 10. Or even younger. As long as your parents are willing to give you away.

According to ThisDay, yesterday, the Senate resolved to alter the part in our constitution that stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until she attains the 18 years.

And this they did after Senator Ahmad Sani (Zamfara West), raised an alarm that stating a certain age for women before getting married, was against the Islamic law. Remember that in 2009, Senator Sani had married a 13-year-old Egyptian in violation of the constitutional provision. His act had sparked an international outrage, to which Senator Sani said he didn't care about.


After a moment of controversy, Senate President David Mark asked his colleagues to vote afresh on the provision, a situation that eventually went in favour of Sani, who, thereafter, thanked the Senate president and his colleagues for supporting his cause.

So Senate deleted age specification for women being married from the draft constitution and left the marriage age for women open.

While deleting the section from the draft constitution yesterday, the Senate claimed that a woman is deemed to be “full of age” once she is married irrespective of the age she did so.