By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
Latest update on orphaned girls indicate that the Director-general of the Niger State Bureau for Religious Affairs and secretary of the state Imam Forum Dr Umar Farouk, has given a seven-day ultimatum to minister of women affairs, Uju Ohanneya Kennedy, to withdraw her statement against the marriage of 100 banditry-induced orphaned girls.
The minister had called for the stoppage of the mass wedding sponsored by the speaker of Niger State House of Assembly Abdulmalik Sarikindaji on the ground that the girls were underage and needed education more than marriage and thereby sought for court injunction to stop the marriage.
The imams claimed that the position of the minister was against Islam and Muslims, declaring that the speaker was in order.
At a press conference at Shariah Commission premises in Minna, the state capital, Farouk cautioned the minister against interfering in Islamic injunctions, adding that the date for the wedding remained sacrosanct.
He therefore called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack the minister for incompetence and for allegedly overstepping her boundary.
Farouk said the forum would support the marriage because it is permitted in Islam and that the speaker’s action was not in error.
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