Reverend Joseph Hayab, Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in 19 Northern States, has alleged that Christian girls have been forcefully married off in some traditional rulers’ households in Northern Nigeria.
Speaking in an interview with Nigerian Info FM from 11:51, Reverend Hayab described how parents are powerless to protect their daughters from forced marriages. “In many traditional rulers’ houses in Northern Nigeria, Christian girls have been forcefully given to marriage. The father and the innocent mother will just sit down, and the court will call them to come and answer that their daughter is no longer their daughter. She’s now somebody else’s daughter, and he has given her to marriage,” he said.
The clergy expressed frustration over the lack of government response to his repeated complaints. “I cried out in this country. If someone says he does not know this, then I’m surprised. We’ve gone to the government. There’s nothing to be done. If you resort to violence, we know the result of violence. When you go to the law, you don’t get the law. I believe those are the accumulations of the crimes—killings, maltreatment, abuse—that have led to where we are today,” he stated.
Reverend Hayab also shared personal experiences of discrimination affecting his own family. He recounted how his daughter scored 268 on the JAMB examination but was denied admission to Ahmadu Bello University, while other students with scores as low as 198 and 202 received admission, attributing the rejection to her Christian name.
Additionally, he revealed that his wife, mother of their six children, was given a settler certificate instead of an indigene form when she applied at Kaduna North local government. View, More,
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