CANTICLES BY EDDY ODIVWRI: Senators’ Love for Baby Wives

Sani Yerima

Canticles.............

So it is true that our Distinguished Senators have such soft spot for “young bloods”

What young blood?

You ask too many questions—Young babes!

How?

Have you not followed the debate and controversy generated by their endorsement of underage marriage in the senate?

Ohhh, is that what you mean? But they have been denying and trying to explain what happened.

So what have they said? Did they vote for child marriage or not?

Ehhhn, on one breadth they say they were actually voting for citizenship, and on another breath, they said they were blackmailed into voting for it?

Did you believe them? You mean distinguished lawmakers, with all their adroitness and sagacity, can be so cheaply blackmailed, just like that, by a paedophile to vote for such an amoral and anti-social issue?

You have to understand that it is a sensitive issue and the senate president needed to be careful, so he won’t be accused of being anti-Islam.

Silly argument!!! Does Islam say we can marry babies as wives? Which chapter of the Quran says so? Tell me! Don’t mind those bigots who hide under religion to perpetuate all kinds of sexual Epicureanism. Look, don’t be carried away by the antics of that Zamfara Senator, em em, thingamabob, Sanni Yarima! Look, that man has been a problem to Nigerian politics. He it was that raised the notch of Sharia law by cutting the hand of Mallam Jangedi for stealing a cow.  Remember? And that became his signature accomplishment as governor. Now again, as Senator, we only hear his voice when it comes to below-the-navel issues! Last year, he raised the curtain when he married a 13 -year-old Egyptian girl. Now he wants to use the institution of the senate to legalise that atrocity, so he can, next year, marry a nine year old suckling.

But he argued that it is better to marry them young instead of allowing them to roam Zone 4 in Abuja at night, looking for who will sleep with them in exchange for N500. Don’t you think he made some sense?

Raw rubbish! Why didn’t you ask him what he went to do at Zone 4 at night? Look, that man is anything but Distinguished. Did you see that Ondo Senator weeping before his constituents who protested against his voting for child marriage? See how Yerima has brought so much shame and embarrassment to the entire senate, making all them look like paedophilles.

Who told you they are not? Do you know how many wives each of them has, legally and illegally?  Do you know the atrocities those lawmakers commit with Abuja girls? Do you think Sanni Yerima was talking out of point?

Do not divert this argument. Whatever senators do with girls is the business of two or more consenting adults. We are talking of constitutionalising baby marriage. What kind of catch--them-young policy is that?

Don’t forget that this is democracy. Those who wanted child marriage were more than those who did not want it. So the rule applies: majority carries the vote.

Another nonsense! Ok. The larger majority, which is the society, has risen to oppose and denounce the reckless amendment. How many of those senators, apart from the notorious Yerima, will give out his or her 10-year-old daughter in marriage?  And you say they are making laws for the good governance of Nigeria? Don’t they know the health risk associated with such early marriage and childbirth?

Hmmmm, look, don’t be too hard on yourself. This is Nigeria, it is a developing nation. We shall get there. But we ain’t there yet. Em.. em.. let’s move forward, to other issues.

You must warn them to apply their times wisely. They cannot waste tax payers’ money to deliberate on social inanities like child marriage. There are too many issues bothering Nigerians to start wasting precious time on philandering affairs.

Let’s not throw away the baby and the bathwater. God will help us.