Child marriage: Stop stoking religious war, Arewa youths warn Senators

Upset by Senate bid to peg official marriage age in Nigeria at 18,
northern youths, yesterday, lashed out at the lawmakers, warning them
not to stoke the embers of religious war over the controversial
legislation.
The Senators had last week voted in favour of amending the Nigerian
Constitution to set the marriage age at 18, a decision that was
promptly challenged by former Zamfara governor, Ahmed Yerima, who
described the decision of the lawmakers as anti-Islam.
Apparently joining forces with Yerima, who also initiated Sharia in
his state when he was governor, Arewa youths asked the Senators to
desist from taking action on the matter so as not to further heat up
the polity along religious, ethnic and political lines and create
avoidable cold war.
The President of the Arewa Youth Forum, Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said in
a statement in Abuja, yesterday, that the Senators had missed the
point in amending the law and exposed themselves as people who were
confused on what to do to justify their presence inthe upper chambers
of the National Assembly.
"The approach by the Senate to this matter shows how grossly
insensitive and poorly equipped they are in the rudiments of
legislative functions and totally insensitive to the critical
challengesNigerians are facing as a people," the AYF leader said.
"The Senate must be told in plain terms since it has lost focus, that
their core function as parliamentarians is not to debate, moderate or
decide religions for Nigerians, or to divide Nigerians on
Christian-Muslim basis or North and South factions.
"They must also be made to know that their function does not include
breeding religious war from their politicization of the Constitution
Amendment exercise but to make laws for peace, good governance,
stability and indivisibility of the Nigerian Federation as contained
in Part II, Section Four (1,2,3) of the 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
"The senators must be told that what Nigerians expect is basically
principled oversight functions to address insecurity tearing the
country apart, the increasing unemployment rate, collapse of health,
education, agriculture and dilapidated infrastructure.
"Another expectation of Nigerians from the Senate is to address
monumental corruption being perpetrated with impunity by electedpublic
office holders and top government officials that has stifled Nigeria
any meaningful development in Nigeria for decades.
"But we are sad to note that the Senate has been painfully reduced
from that honoured pedigree to a mere religious moderation centre and
place of petite issues that tend to divide the citizens along
religious and ethnic lines and not an arm of government thatshould
confront our national challenges.
The youths warned the lawmakers to abandon the attempt to further
instigate friction in Nigeria by ensuring that every Nigerian has the
religious Freedom to practice their faith without harassment,
limitation and intimidation.