The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, says the current Federal Government’s Revenue Sharing Formula is responsible for the rising abuses of the girl child’s rights in Nigeria.
Alhaji Sanusi II made the observation while delivering a speech at a media conference in Abuja on Tuesday held to sensitise the public on the need to ensure social protection of the girl child.
The monarch, who was also against setting 18 years as minimum age for marriage, said the first step to addressing the issue was to address the root causes of poverty in the communities.
“If you tell a man in the village, ‘don’t marry your child off till the age of 18’, what does she do between the age of 11 and 18?
“We need to understand that the problem begins from the economy and from the management of the resources of the country, Alhaji Sanusi II stressed.
He condemned a system where the states get the residual of the nation’s revenue after the Federal Government had taken a large portion of it.
“These are the states that are supposed to provide education and healthcare to hundreds of millions of people. The states are starved of funds,” the Emir said.
According to him, “addressing funding gaps in the states is one step toward finding solution to the problem of girl child’s rights violation”.
The theme of the conference was; “Strategies to Improve the Protection of Girl Child in Nigeria”.
In her welcome remarks, the convener and Country Director of Action Aid, Professor Ojobo Atuluku, identified the key areas the conference would focus on to include early marriage, violence against girls and kidnapping.
“Our work in over 30 states in Nigeria has made us to notice certain challenges faced by the girl child and the society as a result of the situation of the girl child.
“We have highlighted these major issues for attention in this conference within the framework of providing social protection for the girl child,” Mrs Atuluku stated.
Meanwhile, the wife of the Vice President, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo, who represented the First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari, at the forum queried the non-implementation of existing laws for the protection of the girl child.
She urged agencies to focus more on the implementation of the laws that had been established for the protection of the girl child.
According to UNICEF, over 28 per cent of married women in Nigeria are between age 15 and 19 with a chunk of this number from the north.
