The wife of the Bauchi State governor, Aisha Bala Mohammed, has berated men who imbibe the culture of marrying women and divorcing them for no genuine reasons.
She vowed to lead awareness campaign against the bad practices in Bauchi state.
The first lady who stated this when she hosted selected girls from across the country for the celebration of the 2020 International Day of the Girl Child in Bauchi explained that some of the men perceive and understand marriage and divorce as a way of deriving pleasure.
She lamented that at the end such divorce, the girl child is left in the middle of suffering.
“Some men feel that they have the liberty to marry as many times as possible. But they have forgotten that they must love and care for them all equally. If these are to be abided by, most men wouldn’t have been doing all sort of things.
“Some of them feel it’s a pleasure. That’s why we are facing some of these problems. You see a man beating, abusing and putting too much pressure on his wife before his son; what lesson is he passing across?
According to her, “Some of them feel they can marry today and divorce tomorrow and nobody will say anything on it. They know that their neighbours will still give their daughters out to them in marriage. They think every girl is a leisure; they feel that girl child is like a cloth that can be used and thrown out and nobody can say anything; even our clerics,” she said.
Aisha assured that she will use her NGO, ‘Almuhibbah Foundation’ to promote issues of the Girl child to ensure that she got better and quality education, hygienic environment and protection from gender based violence.
She also decried that most parents in her Local Government Area of Alkaleri do not believe in educating the girl child, saying that they are to be married off before they finish school, “My local government is the last in terms of girl child education. Yet, the girl child right is enshrined in both Holy Qur’an and Holy Bible. Parents must ensure the welfare of their wards.”
“Apologies to UNICEF, this demand for girl child to me, should be directed to parents and not the government. Government can only ensure that the parents provide these welfare,” she said.
On violence against girl child and rape of vulnerable women, Aisha said, “We all have to come out with one voice. Most of the victims’ parents have no formal education who believe that women should be a woman without proper knowledge of being a mother”.
The year 2020 celebration is in partnership with Federal Ministries Education, Women Affairs, National Centre for Women Development, UNICEF under the FCDO funded GEP 3 programme which organized series of activities targeted at raising sustained consciousness on the role of education in building an empowered future for Nigerian girls.