On Friday, Senator Ahmad Yerima defended his marriage to a 14-year-old Egyptian girl, which in 2010 angered local human rights organisations.
At Abuja’s national mosque, the former governor of Zamfara State wed an alleged 13-year-old immigrant 13 years ago.
![I'm giving out my 16-year-old daughter in marriage this September" - Senator Yerima [WATCH] - Daily Post Nigeria](https://dailypost.ng/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ahmed-yerima_500_7002_theme1_400_300-1200x900.jpg)
However, Yerima disclosed that his Egyptian bride was older and working towards a master’s degree when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The former governor was asked if she was 15 when he objected to her being 13 and he responded, “Around that age: 14, 15.”
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Yerima, who criticised the Child Rights Act of 2003 and the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act of 2015, claimed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo “tried to smuggle the Child Rights Act” and that any law passed by the National Assembly must be domesticated by the state assemblies.
I don’t believe any state in the North domesticated it and passed it, Yerima stated, but he managed to pass it at the National Assembly through various tricks.
When asked to explain why he believed children should have the freedoms and the right to an education guaranteed by the Child Rights Act, he responded that marriage could not put an end to schooling.
He said, “She’s doing her master’s degree now,” when questioned further about his Egyptian wife’s education level.
Additionally, Yerima mentioned that his daughter, whom he had married off at the age of 16, “is pursuing her PhD in London.”
In response to the assertion that he gave the Egyptian girl $100,000 as money for her hand in marriage, the former governor of Zamfara clarified, “It’s not dowry.”
He continued by saying that the total was calculated after accounting for “all other things” that were listed as prerequisites for the marriage.
“Provision of the house, provision of the dowry, the dresses that she has to wear, everything [in] total,” he stated. “It was only 15 million Naira at the time.”
Yerima said that one can provide as much as is required of them in a marriage according Sharia Law.
