…child rights group kicks
A child rights advocacy group, DO Foundation has denounced the marriage ceremony between a 54-year-old man identified as Elder Akpos and a four-year-old girl.
The event was held in the Akeddei community in the Sagbama LGA of the Bayelsa State on 26 December.
The little girl’s parents reportedly gave her out in marriage to the quinquagenarian claiming that he was her husband in a past life.
According to a source who spoke anonymously to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the girl corroborated the parents’ claims.
She narrated that she was married to Elder Akpos in her past life but he died mysteriously. After she died, she has been reincarnating in different families in search of her former husband.
“The little bride said if she was not allowed to marry her husband, she would have no other business in the Akeddei community and that she was going to die peacefully and go her own way,” the source added.
“In order to avoid losing the girl to death, the people of Akeddei decided to organise a glamorous wedding ceremony to mark the union of the two previous life lovers.”
Do Foundation frowned at the said child marriage, describing it as ‘horrendous, despicable and a criminal activity’
The organisation called on the Government of Bayelsa State, stakeholders and security agencies to investigate the incident to protect the child from sexual exploitation.
The child rights group also demanded the state authorities to arrest and prosecute all persons “found culpable in this despicable event.”
The chairperson of the DO Foundation, Elvis Mannie, said the group has begun an investigation into the development to save the child from the obnoxious situation.
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