ISLAMIC LAW SANCTIONS MARRIAGE BASED ON MATURITY NOT AGE – YARIMA

Serving Senator and former Zamfara State governor, Ahmed Sani Yarima has countered critics over the role he played in the Senate constitution amendment vote on Section 29(4)(b) widely interpreted in many quarters as an endorsement of child marriage.
Yarima denied backing child marriages, and asserted that under Islamic law a girl was considered ripe for marriage based on her physical and mental maturity, her age notwithstanding.
The senator was speaking, yesterday, in an interview monitored on the early morning show ‘Kakaaki’ aired by the African Independent Television (AIT)
LEADERSHIP reported that the Senate President, David Mark had declared Wednesday, July 14 that the Senate will revisit the contentious Section 29(4)(b) vote. “We (Senators) are not pedophiles”, Mark told a high-powered lobby delegation insisting that Senators were blackmailed on religious grounds on the constitution amendment vote which sought to delete the “discriminatory” section 29(4)(b) from the Constitution.
Dismissing the controversy, the Senator representing Zamfara West said insinuations that he supports child marriages were untrue, misleading and the handiwork of mischief-makers.
Source: Leadership