Is Child Marriage a loosing battle?

The campaign against early marriage in Nigeria appears not to be making the needed progress going by recent events.

This, at least, is what the marrying of an 18-year-old secondary school leaver at the weekend by the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, has proven.

The 18-year-old girl, Sa’adatu Barkindo-Musdafa, is the daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa, Muhammadu Barkindo-Musdafa, and the third wife of the Kano monarch.

Justifying the action, a top Kano State government official who travelled to Yola, the Adamawa State capital, for the wedding, said Emir Sanusi’s “decision to take a new wife is in line with Islamic injunction,” adding that “Islam allows having a maximum of four wives for those who can treat all of them equally and provide for a large family’’.

Before Emir Sanusi, several other persons particularly from the north, had taken teenagers as wives. One of such persons who made headlines within and without Nigeria is former Zamfara State governor, Ahmed Yerima. 

Yerima, a Senator, had in 2013 caused a stir when he divorced the 17-year-old Egyptian bride he married three years before to marry a new 14-year-old girl.

Granted that Emir Sanusi’s action and others before him who married teenage girls are sanctioned by Islam, still it is doubtful if marrying a teenager is a virtue recommended in Islam.

The question is why is it that these Nigerians who marry new wives often go for teenage girls? Are there no other older ladies aside teenagers that they can marry?

This practice only goes to show how bleak the future of the girl-child is in Nigeria but particularly in the north. It also shows that those who are not in support of the campaign against early marriage are not about to give up.

Fact is that no nation which takes the development of all sections of its populace seriously will look the other way when its teenage girls are married off early. So, can our teenage girls be allowed to grow up to proper adults?