Emir of Kano says it's time to peg marriage age in Nigeria

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II says
its time to peg marriage age in Nigeria. Speaking
at a conference of Northern Muslims Religious
Leaders Forum on Primary Health care in Kano
yesterday May 24th, Sanusi spoke strongly
against child marriage. According to him, the
health challenge faced when a girl is exposed to
child marriage is enough reason to discontinue
the practice.
"I believe the time is ripe to take a stand
on this age long practice of early
marriage, and coincidentally we
subscribed to Malikiyya school of thought
like Morocco, Malaysia and Egypt who
had since pegged marriage age to 17, 19
and 18 respectively”. Sanusi added that
the role of a woman as a housewife are
numerous and highly demanding and
hence a girl should be allowed to have
attained some level of maturity before
she is married off. On domestic violence
in marriages, Sanusi said it was not
Islamic for men to hit their wives. He
added that he had already told his
daughters to retaliate if they experience
such “I don’t expect my in-law to lay his
hand on my daughter, but I have since
urged her to retaliate any form of assault
from her husband”.