The Niger State Governor, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu has criticised some human rights groups in the country for rising in defence of the Bida based Islamic scholar Alhaji Abubakar Bello Masaba who has 86 wives, maintaining that their defence of the man was immoral.? Aliyu said in Minna yesterday that the Human Rights Groups should have defended the right of 86 women the super polygamist was controlling in his harem.
The governor said at the National Gender Dialogue Session in Niger State held at the Idris Legbo Kutigi International Conference Centre that the cleric should be condemned in the strongest terms because none of the major religions in the country allow anyone to marry more than four wives.
He noted that even Islam that permits four wives enjoins the man to show justice and fairness and added that polygamy had gone out of fashion because of technological development and reawakening.
?Consequently Governor Aliyu posited that the rights of women must be protected so that they could perform better than they are doing at present.
According to him traditions and practices that had made women objects of entertainment and ridicule should be discouraged because “women are not only equal but are superior to men”.
He pointed out that women are the custodians of culture, language learning and religion.
On the child right act, governor Aliyu who said it was to adequately protect the child and women,? challenged the Ministry of Gender Affairs to make sure it worked out a better way of enforcing the law in order to protect women in the state.
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