Delegate advocates commission for divorcees, children

Senator Sa’idu Musa Dansadau, a member of the National Conference, yesterday called for the establishment of a commission for divorcees.

Dansadau said the body has become because of the high rate of divorcees and in order to protect the female divorces in particular and their children.

The senator said the rate of divorces was particularly high in northern Nigeria and lamented that if the nothing was done to check the rate and protect women it would have negative impact on the society at large.

Describing the trend as ugly and a menace which is narrowed down to mostly northern Muslims, he called on state houses of assembly in predominantly Muslim states to set up the body he wants called “Women and Children Islamic Rights Commission” to cater for the interests of divorcees and their children.

“The way and manner Muslims in the northern part of the country divorce their wives, I am not aware of any community anywhere in the world where wives are divorced with impunity like in the northern part of the country, especially in Hausa communities of the North.

“Where you find a person marrying a wife at the age of 16 to 18, after she had reached the age of 55 or 60 and after giving birth to six or eight children, the husband will just divorce her. That is just pathetic.

“The most unfortunate thing is that when they divorce these wives, they allow the wives to go with the children because they feel if the divorces go with the children, it is a relief to them, they don’t have to feed the children, they don’t have to pay for their school fees, medical bills and others.

“The wife that is being divorced doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to even feed the children, not to talk of paying their school fees and you know where you have a child without father, such a child will not have the moral training required of any child not to talk of a child acquiring the kind of education he should acquire at the time he should acquire it,” he said.

Also, he advocated what he calls “the Egyptian model” where “a man must own his house before marrying a wife and upon divorce, must leave the house for the wife and children”.