For members of the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission Matters, an underage girl forced into early marriage is deemed to have met the minimum constitutional age requirement to vote in Nigerian elections. Put in proper context, even if the child is forced into marriage at such age as 12 or 14 as obtains in some parts of the country, she should be permitted to vote. This is an incomprehensible and repulsive legislative intendment. In fact, there is nothing as despicable as using the instrument of law-making to advance a patently obnoxious and primitive religious interest like underage marriage.
Defined by experts as marriage before the age of 18, UNICEF says that in Nigeria, an estimated 44 percent of girls are married before their 18th birthday, while the country records the 11th highest rate of child marriage. It is thought that the lawmakers would be interested in rooting out a scourge that has multidimensional consequences for the country instead of entrenching it through the ambit of the law.
But that is exactly what the lawmakers are up to in their ongoing amendment to the Electoral Act. They proposed a review of the provision in the Act that pegs the eligibility of a voter at 18 years and specifically recommended that INEC should consider any married girl who is not up to 18 years as eligible to vote. This, obviously, is a legislative wild goose chase taken too far.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, Kabiru Gaya, said, “The joint committee has proposed that if a lady who is not up to 18 years is married, she should be considered to be mature enough and be eligible to vote.” Even at that, the unhidden discrimination embedded in the proposed legislation is unmistakeable as it is only interested in underage girls forced into early marriage. It is discriminatory to confer electoral advantage on the girl-child over the boy-child because of a perfidious act that has no place in modern societies.
For a country that expects to be taken seriously in the comity of nations and the democratic world in particular, this is a most bizarre and inchoate legal proposal. It should not be allowed to see the light of day even though it is claimed to be a product of “a unanimous decision of the joint committee of the National Assembly.”
It runs contrary to the goals of universal adult suffrage, to which all democracies subscribe. With a 1.36 billion population and over 900 million registered voters, making it the world’s largest democracy, India’s voting age is 18 years. It was only reduced from 21 following the Constitution (61st Amendment) Act 1988. The same as in the United States of America where the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, sequel to the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1971. In Australia, since the existence of the Federation in 1901, the country’s voting age is 18, lowered from 21 years as a consequence of the Commonwealth Electoral Bill (1973). Why does it appear Nigeria is in a solo race to the nadir of ignominy?
Curiously, the federal lawmakers deliberately feigned ignorance of the country’s constitution, which they swore to an oath to uphold, a dangerous predilection in a thriving democracy. Section 77(2) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria expressly states, in relation to elections into the National Assembly in particular: “Every citizen of Nigeria, who has attained the age of eighteen years, residing in Nigeria at the time of the registration of voters for purposes of election to a legislative house, shall be entitled to be registered as a voter for that election.” Put succinctly, anyone who has yet to attain the age of 18, whether married or unmarried, by law, is unqualified to exercise their franchise in Nigeria. The Nigerian Constitution is the grundnorm, which legal experts affirm that, “any act or law contrary to it will be declared null and void and of no effect whatsoever.”
Recall that universal adult suffrage became a reality in Nigeria in the 1979 elections when women in the North were allowed for the first time to participate in elections. Originally, it is claimed that the right to vote was thought of as a direct consequence of property interests rather than adhering to the person as a political right.
Though primary education is officially free and compulsory in Nigeria, it is claimed that about 14 million children are out of school. UNICEF notes that “gender, like geography and poverty, is an important factor in the pattern of educational marginalisation” with states in the North-East and North-West regions of the country having a female primary net attendance rates of 47.7 percent and 47.3 percent, respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls are not in school. Underage marriage accentuates this grim reality that should elicit legislative intervention to address.
It speaks volumes that instead of strengthening the capacity of INEC to prosecute underage voters, the lawmakers are inadvertently encouraging such electoral perfidy. The media and civil society organisations especially women rights advocacy groups should mobilise against this disservice to the womenfolk in the guise of a piece of legislation, which draws Nigeria back in the development circle.
