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Nigerian teen kills husband after weeks of forced marriage

Wednesday September 08 2021
divorce-rules

Ms Rumasa’u Muhammed demanded that her late husband divorce her since she was not interested in the marriage but he declined. A divorce breaks families apart. PHOTO |FILE

By MOHAMMED MOMOH

Three weeks into a forced marriage, a 19-year-old woman in Adamawa State, Nigeria, has allegedly stabbed her husband to death for refusing to divorce her.

Rumasa’u Muhammed is said to have attacked Muhammed Adamu in Wuro Yanka village after her parents forced her to marry the 35-year-old man on August 6, 2021.

Weeks later, Ms Muhammed demanded that her late husband divorce her peacefully since she was not interested in the marriage.

However, Mr Adamu refused. His wife eventually stabbed him in the stomach on Tuesday and he fell unconscious. He was rushed to hospital where he was confirmed dead.

Adamawa State Police Command spokesperson, Mr Sulaiman Nguroje, confirmed that the woman was arrested for further investigation.

He also advised members of the public not to force their daughters into early marriages, a trend he said was rampant.

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The suspect, he said, would however be prosecuted immediately to serve as a deterrent to others.

An Islamic scholar who spoke on the incident, Mr Ustaz Abdullah Hamman, said forced marriages have no basis in Islam.

He noted that while parents may have a say on what sorts of families their children marry into, Islam does not encourage forcing it on them.

By Nigerian law, it is illegal to force a girl to marry. According to Section 13 of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 (VAPP Act), forced marriage is a criminal act and is considered a harmful traditional practice.

Under Nigerian civil law, forced marriage can carry a jail term of seven years.

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