{"id":36347,"date":"2021-02-02T17:38:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T17:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?p=36347"},"modified":"2021-02-02T17:01:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T17:01:47","slug":"senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls","title":{"rendered":"Senate rejects bill seeking voting rights for underage girls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>A bill seeking voting rights for married underage girls has been rejected by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).<\/p>\n<p>The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, made this known at a press briefing on Tuesday in Abuja, saying the proposal which was presented at a public hearing on electoral reforms could not sail through.<\/p>\n<p>The bill which was proposed in December 2020 by Gaya and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Aisha Dukku, was presented to the National Assembly Joint Committee on INEC Matters.<\/p>\n<p>The committee was expected to review a provision in the Electoral Act which pegged the eligibility of a voter at 18 years.<\/p>\n<p>While presenting the bill, Gaya said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>READ MORE: Senate passes bill backing establishment of Peace Corp, Hunters Council for second reading<\/b><\/p>\n<p>He added that the amendment to the Electoral Act No 6 of 2010 would not confer voting rights on underage, but married girls often referred to as child-wives.<\/p>\n<p>He argued that the issue had raised a lot of dust when it was presented in a memorandum submitted to a technical committee set up on the reforms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne 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,\u201d the lawmaker added.<\/p>\n<p>Gaya\u2019s position was supported by Dukku, who said the recommendation should not be thrown out because it was suggested by stakeholders at the public hearing.<\/p>\n<p>At the inaugural session of the technical panel which also had in attendance the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the two lawmakers said the proposal was a unanimous decision of the Joint Committee of the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>But at Tuesday\u2019s press briefing, Gaya said the bill had been rejected and would no longer be considered in the future.<\/p>\n<p>He said some groups had demanded the change of election days from Saturday, adding that the same argument would be made if elections were fixed for Friday or Sundays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf 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,\u201d the lawmaker concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Opinions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. A bill seeking voting rights for married underage girls has been rejected by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, made this known at a press briefing on Tuesday in Abuja, saying the proposal which was presented at a public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":36346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,14,26],"tags":[1570,2140,341,254,53,2814,2815],"class_list":["post-36347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-bill","tag-nigeria","tag-senate","tag-underage-girls","tag-underage-voting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Senate rejects bill seeking voting rights for underage girls - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A bill seeking voting rights for married underage girls has been rejected by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on the Independ ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Senate rejects bill seeking voting rights for underage girls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A bill seeking voting rights for married underage girls has been rejected by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on the Independ ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-02T17:38:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/img-6019855840a76.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"387\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Senate rejects bill seeking voting rights for underage girls\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-02T17:38:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\"},\"wordCount\":425,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/img-6019855840a76.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"bill\",\"Nigeria\",\"senate\",\"Underage girls\",\"Underage voting\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/senate-rejects-bill-seeking-voting-rights-for-underage-girls\",\"name\":\"Senate rejects bill seeking voting rights for underage girls - 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