Nigeria: Senator Who Married A 13-Year-Old Child Wants To Be President

Senator Ahmed Yerima has declared his intention to contest for the Presidency in 2019 provided President Muhammadu Buhari does not intend to seek reelection.

The former Zamfara State governor, in a chat with newsmen on Sunday, November 5, 2017 said he remains committed to the re-election of Buhari but if the President does not want a second term, the coast will be clear for him (Yerima) to contest.

“I will support the President if he decides to run in 2019. I will not contest against him, but if he does not contest and I decide to come out, nobody will condemn me. That’s my personal decision,” Yerima said.

According to the Senator representing Zamfara West, he has obtained the needed endorsement to contest for the nation’s top job and he has not failed to serve the people well in all his political positions.

“I am in politics not for personal aggrandizement but for the sheer glory. I am in politics to serve. And I have not failed to do that,” he said.

At the National Executive Council meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) last week, Yerima was the one who seconded the motion to grant President Buhari automatic ticket to contest in 2019, a request which was deferred.

Yerima made headlines a few years ago when he married a 13-year old girl in Abuja despite the fact that marriage of underage girls is illegal in the nation’s capital. At the time, rights groups had condemned his action.

“If you have a law that says you cannot marry a 13-year-old. If you have a law that says you cannot marry a-15-year old, then why on God’s green earth, will a guy who is a senator, who makes laws, violate or break that same law. It’s because he thinks the law is not applicable to him,” said one rights group official to Aljazeera.

The senator however doubled down on his action, saying that his marriage did not contradict the teachings of Islam.

Culled from The Scoop