Jigawa state governor, Muhammad Badaru, Wednesday, assented to the Child Protection Bill and the state 2022 Appropriation Bill.
The two bills were assented to by the governor a day after they were passed by the state House of Assembly.
The governor presented the appropriation bill to lawmakers on November 10.
The 2022 appropriation bill tagged, “Budget of Consolidation for Sustainable Economic Development” amounted to N177.7 billion.
Speaking at the ceremony at Government House, Dutse, Governor Badaru said signing the two laws was a ”double pleasure and great progress made”.
“It’s a double pleasure to sign both the 2022 Appropriation Bill and the child protection law, this is a great milestone.
“We thank the speaker, the lawmakers for the remarkable progress. Laws were passed usually in February, sometimes at the middle of the year, but now we are passing laws in December and (will) start implementation on January 1,” Governor Badaru said.
Also making some clarifications on the law, the Chairman House Committee on Justice and Judiciary, Hon Abubakar Sadiq Jallo said the passage and signing it into law by Governor Badaru had been done in good faith.
According to him, before the law was passed by the House, a technical committee of experts was constituted with members from council of Ulamah, who studied the report and expunged sections that contract the religion and culture of the Jigawa indigenes.
He said about 16 issues were identified to be contradicting the religion and culture of the people, such as given bad names to the children, watching bad cartoons, tribal or identical marks on the face, prostitution, slavery or child labour as well as watching pornographic among others.
He said under the law, sodomy is taken as rape; using finger to penetrate under-age girl is also rape and punishable by death if the victim is below ten years and life imprisonment if the victim is above ten.
