NEWS
Senator says child marriage in the Northern Nigeria constitutes insecurity
Senator representing Ogun West Senatorial district, Tolulope Odebiyi, has expressed worry over increasing child marriage in northern Nigeria, saying it constitutes increasing insecurity in the country.
He stated this while contributing to a motion titled: “Urgent need to surmount all kinds of kidnappings, banditry and related security challenges in Wasagu-Danko, Sakaba, and Yauri Local Government Areas of Kebbi State.
He identified the rise of terrorists to underage marriage, a culture in the north while stating that it would continue to give room to procreation amid poverty until underage marriage was stopped.
“We seem to be very reactive and very ad-hoc on how we solve problems such as security in this country, but I think we need to go a bit deeper.
“It is a fertile ground for recruiting bandits, especially when you put that in conjunction with the breakdown of countries around Nigeria in the Sahel and all those areas, it will provide a fertile environment,” he said.
“when the underage marriage takes place in poverty, the couple gave birth in that condition and the baby grew up only to be recruited by criminal gangsters.
“If you look at from 2013, we had about 4million children out of school, today you have 14m children out of school, add that to about 100 million people in poverty, especially if you look at the northeast and the northwest.
“If we sit down here by 2025, we will have 20million children out of school, the security issue in this country will continue to get worse.
“So, all these ad-hoc reactions of calling on Army, the police, we must have a compressive approach and declare a marshal law against out-of-school children.
“As long as we have poverty and more children out of school, as long as we have under underage children giving birth, to more poverty, it is a fertile ground,” he stated.
