The Senate committee set up on INEC has rejected the opinion that Under-18 married girls should also be given the right to vote.
The Committee chairman, Senator Kabiru Gaya said the suggestion was made at a public hearing on electoral reforms.
He expalained that the on-going amendment to the Electoral Act No 6 of 2010 would not give voting rights to underage married girls referred to as child-wives.
Read his statement below;
“One of the people who came to the public hearing submitted the memorandum and argued that the word underage was not his, but that any woman or man that is married should be considered as an adult.
“That was his reason. Our own resolve is that if a woman is at the age of 16 and she gets married, she should not be allowed to vote.
“Generally there was a lot of noise. It was in a memorandum submitted by a group of people and they have their rights as Nigerians.
“But when we came to the committee, we discussed a lot on that and at the end of the day, we felt we could not go along with that suggestion and it was dropped,’’
Gaya also said that there was another suggestion not to hold elections on Saturdays as it’s a holy day to a certain religious group.
In response to the suggestion, Gaya said;
“If we move elections to Fridays some people will say it is their worship day; if we move it to Sundays, some other people will say it is also their worship day.
“So, that suggestion was also thrown out,’’
