The suggestion for married underage girls to have voting rights has been rejected by the senate committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Kabiru Gaya, chairman of the Senate committee revealed this while answering questions at the NAN Forum in Abuja on Tuesday, February 2.Gaya said;
“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 about. 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.”Also commenting on the suggestion for elections not to hold on Saturdays, Gaya averred that same argument will be made if elections are moved to Fridays and Sundays.
He added;
“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."