Okiki_Oluwa: See the as them they contradict themselves.
Last Bullet:
Any girl that's not 18 should not be allowed to vote even if she was married from the womb!

sainty2k3: Its just a means of passively giving support to child marriage.
Cos this explanation means that the 13 year old wife of Yerima can vote whereas a 17 year old unmarried can't.
They are saying if u want ur 7yr old daughter to attain the constitutional 'full age' just give her out in marriage
That section needs review

ejim blessing: SAY NO TO CHILD MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA: Paedophiles Senators, If She's TOO YOUNG to vote during your ELECTION, then she's too young to stand your ERECTI*N. Give her PEN not PEN*S, ask for her BOOKS not BO*BS, pay her SCHOOL FEES not BRIDE PRICE, she needs EDUCATION not EJACULATI*N. IF YOU ARE NOT IN SUPPORT OF CHILD MARRIAGE, PLEASE SPREAD THIS MESSAGE AND CONDEMN IN TOTAL TO PROTECT THE YOUNG NIGERIAN GIRL CHILD.

ejim blessing: SAY NO TO CHILD MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA: Paedophiles Senators, If She's TOO YOUNG to vote during your ELECTION, then she's too young to stand your ERECTI*N. Give her PEN not PEN*S, ask for her BOOKS not BO*BS, pay her SCHOOL FEES not BRIDE PRICE, she needs EDUCATION not EJACULATI*N. IF YOU ARE NOT IN SUPPORT OF CHILD MARRIAGE, PLEASE SPREAD THIS MESSAGE AND CONDEMN IN TOTAL TO PROTECT THE YOUNG NIGERIAN GIRL CHILD.

Slickest: This mumu govt have succeeded in diverting our attention, the bone of contention dat might run for the rest of this year nw is child marriage, no one is tokin unemploymnt anymore,ASUU stryk is on a pending zone. One question please, was yerima not married to his 13yr old wife before the bill was passed? what was the purnishment before child marriage became legal....child marriage had always existed in naija and no soul has ever been purnished for it.

naptu2: This brings me to another issue. People always say "the news is boring", "politics is boring", etc and I think that attitude is one of the reasons why controversies like this arise.

The constitution amendment committee sat in every senatorial district in this country, how many of the people that are complaining attended the sitting in their locality? How many have taken the time to study the constitution so that they'll know what it says? How many went to the committee's sittings with a proposal for the amendment of the constitution? How many have actually read these sections in order to know what they actually say?

sainty2k3: Its just a means of passively giving support to child marriage.
Cos this explanation means that the 13 year old wife of Yerima can vote whereas a 17 year old unmarried can't.
They are saying if u want ur 7yr old daughter to attain the constitutional 'full age' just give her out in marriage
That section needs review

Mr Excel: if they said it is not so , then they should try and explain 2 Nigerians their intentions cos we are realy in the dark here.

greyman: "The argument that I personally find most shallow is that of ‘13-year-olds can get pregnant for their boyfriends, but they can’t get married?’ to which I say: upbringing goes a long way in determining what activities a child will be engaged in at that age. That some lost their virginity at 13 does not mean that all of us did, or that every child will. Why are we making examples of those pregnant teens, and not of many sisters who married in their mid-20s and were chaste? Why not say ‘why should a 13-year-old have sex when 23- year-olds are virgins?’ The truth of the matter is: a 13-year-old shouldn’t be having sex in the first place and marriage is therefore not a solution to that! ‘Legalizing’ sex for children is like saying ‘why criminalize corruption when politicians are bound to steal? Why don’t we just increase their allowances by 100,000 per cent?’" Rinsola Abiola

obailala: The media certainly deceived us in this matter. I actually thought the senate outrightly passed a bill approving marriage to minors but now the picture is clearer. Unfortunately, Nigerians are hell bent on stubbornly swallowing the original misleading story passed on to us through the media instead of taking out time to ask the VITAL QUESTIONS.

From my little understanding of this whole saga:
1) The constitution says a person who is of full age must have attained 18 years of age
2) Now they want to allow an exception to this law which considers married women under 18 as being of 'full age' for the sake of 'renouncing citizenship' ONLY

Two vital questions I have are:
1) What is the actual age of consent in Nigeria according to our constitution - Nobody seems to have asked this question
2) Are we sure the proposed exception would not be extended beyond 'renouncing citizenship' only to other areas such as voting rights?

drnoel:
It mean yarima married an underage who can vote. The fact that she is underage and married does not make her an adult even if she is to be regarded as one. It means yarima still broke the law by marring an underage.

drnoel:
It mean yarima married an underage who can vote. The fact that she is underage and married does not make her an adult even if she is to be regarded as one. It means yarima still broke the law by marring an underage.

HoldenCaulfield: Nigerians (especially southerns) are silly sonuvabitches, i swear to to god they are. Why all the chaos about what concerns you not for god's. Mtchew bunch of phony, dirty slobs.

Find Out!:
Misinformation galore.

Many of those screaming childnotbride could have saved their breath on 29 (4) and looked for the relevant section to attack if they as much as READ the legislation in question. But then since a vast majority of Nigerians DO NOT READ, coupled with the Senator Yerima beef & the bandwagon effect (me too i'm talking, or i'm among), its not hard to see why so much misdirected noise was made over that legislation.

Even on nairaland here, some people were still writing epistles and stating categorically that "Nigeria wanted to introduce a law allowing child marriage" when the issue at hand was actually the removal or retention of a certain clause in a section devoted entirely to citizenship and which in actual fact had to do with giving an edge or not to women who were under 18 but married.

It is also not surprising why our leaders have continued to do nonsense, get away with it and still get voted again by people. WE DON'T READ. We never bother to find out just how much cra..p or otherwise we are getting from the leaders.
I hope that from now, especially by 2015, Nigerians will for once actually use their active campaign mentality for something good rather than relying on sentiments as usual.

Owolabi-10:
please can someone help me with the procedure of creating your own topic here on nairaland

HoldenCaulfield: Nigerians (especially southerns) are silly sonuvabitches, i swear to to god they are. Why all the chaos about what concerns you not for god's. Mtchew bunch of phony, dirty slobs.

LeoG: .

Intentions= all married northern girls who are not up to 18 years will be full of age, automatically become adult and allowed to vote. About 50% of married women in d north if not more. I live in d north ,der are millions of dem, one man can have about 3 of dem as wives, so imagine 50millon men=150million underage northern voters. *Strategy

Slickest: This mumu govt have succeeded in diverting our attention, the bone of contention dat might run for the rest of this year nw is child marriage, no one is tokin unemploymnt anymore,ASUU stryk is on a pending zone. One question please, was yerima not married to his 13yr old wife before the bill was passed? what was the purnishment before child marriage became legal....child marriage had always existed in naija and no soul has ever been purnished for it.