Senator Ahmad Yarima on Friday said the 14-year-old Egyptian girl he tied the nuptial knot with 13 years ago has come of age.
This is as he defended his marriage to the minor, which sparked outrage within and outside Nigeria at the time, especially from human rights groups, when the news came to public knowledge.
The outrage prompted a Senate probe – as a sitting senator at the time. However, Yarima who appeared on a television programme yesterday, said he did not break any law by marrying the Egyptian girl, a minor at the time, as the States in the North did not pass the child right act into law.
He also revealed that his bride was older and was in the process of obtaining a master’s degree. He, however, objected to her being 13, stating that she was “around that age: 14, 15.”
Yarima criticised the Child Rights Act (2003) and the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (2015), saying whatever Act is passed at the National Assembly has to be domesticated by the state assemblies, and alleged that former President Olusegun Obasanjo “tried to smuggle the Child Rights Act”.
Asked to share his views on whether children deserve the right to education and other freedoms enshrined in the Child Rights Act, he argued that marriage could not stop education.
Yarima also noted that his daughter whom he had given away in marriage at the age of 16 “is doing her PhD in London”.
On the claim that he paid $100,000 as dowry for the Egyptian girl’s hand in marriage, the former Zamfara State governor noted that “it’s not dowry”. He explained further that “all other things” stipulated as conditions for the marriage were counted to arrive at that figure.
One can give as much as is requested of them in marriage by Sharia Law, Yarima disclosed.
