Follow @9jaLife Based on a prediction that his fortune would experience a leap, should he be married to a 12-year-old, a septuagenarian is hell bent on exchanging marital vows with the pre-teen girl despite the protestations of the mother. TWELVE years old Aminat Hamisu, a Class 1 student of Ansar Ud Deen Junior Secondary School in Ado Odo/Ota Local Government is in dire need of someone to save her life from impending disaster. She is a subject of a forceful marriage to a man, old enough to be her grandfather. She lost her father in the course of the confusion that ensued over her planned marriage to a septuagenarian. Aminat is supposed to be a Junior Secondary School 2 student but had to miss a whole academic session as a result of the fact that she had to escape from being forcefully engaged to a man, who should have been her guardian rather than husband. The insistence of the old man to marry her has also resulted in her missing classes. Forty three years old Salamatu Hamisu, the mother of the 12 years old girl, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians and human rights organisations to save her daughter from forceful marriage to a man bent on marrying the girl. The mother of seven, while narrating the whole episode to Nigerian Tribune stated that it all started in 2001, when a man identified as Mallam Ibraheem Mairago, who was like a father to her insisted on marrying Aminat, who was just 11 years of age at that time. According to her, a certain Mallam Alli had told Mairago that he had a dream that if he could marry Aminat, his riches would multiply. Meirago believed Mallam Alli and instantly approached the father of Aminat, Alhaji Hamisu Aliyu, now deceased, asking for the hand of his daughter in marriage. "Initially my husband refused but, when Mairago promised him some goodies, he accepted the marriage proposal without telling either the girl or me. Mairago promised to give him a portion at the ram market in Mile 12. He also promised to always involve him in Quranic recitation for wealthy people in Lagos," Salamatu [...]
