FEDERAL SENATE OKAYS MARRIAGE FOR UNDERAGED WOMEN, REJECTS AUTONOMY FOR LG'S

The much-awaited voting on recommendations of the Senate Committee on
the Review of the Constitution took place on Tuesday with the
parliament throwing out the recommendation of a six-year single term
for the president and governors.
It also rejected autonomy for local governments as well as the moves
to separate the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation ...
(AGF)
from that of the minister of justice.
On its part, the House of Representatives, which was billed to begin
debate on the report of its Constitution Review Committee Tuesday, has
shifted it, following disagreement over theprocedure to adopt in
carrying out the exercise.
The voting in the Senate, which lasted for about five hours, also
witnessed the adoption of Section 9 of the draft bill of the
amendment, which empowers the National Assembly to make an entirely
new constitution for the country.
The senators also adopted Section 3A of the draft, which rejected the
president's assent to the amended constitution before taking effect.
The Senate also resolved to alter Section 29 (a) of the constitution
that stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until
she attains the 18 years as they 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.
The parliament, which had earlier retained this section by its voting,
opted to alter it in submission to the alarm raised by Senator Ahmad
Sani (Zamfara West), who claimed that the provision which stipulates a
certain age for women before getting married, was at variancewith
Islamic law.
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. It is worthy of
note that Sani had two years ago married a 13-year-old Egyptian in
violation of the constitutional provision