Controversy has continued to greet the marriage of a forty-seven–year-old man, Alhaji Musa Tsafe, with his granddaughter, Hajiya Wasila Isah, in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
As reported by Daily Trust, Alhaji Musa married the granddaughter of his elder brother 23 years ago and they are blessed with eight children.
However, being the blood younger brother of his wife’s grandfather, the legality of the marriage was questioned by the Islamic injunctions.
According to the Shura Council of the local council, Alhaji Musa Tsafe, being of the same parent with his wife’s grandfather is not allowed to marry her as provided by Islamic law and declared the marriage between them as illegal.
A family source said the marriage was contracted in 1999. The source said it was a case of elopement between the couple.
The source said, “After some time, the marriage ceremony was hurriedly arranged by the family probably without taking into cognisance its Islamic implications. Shortly after the wedding, the couple moved to Buruku in Kaduna State and they stayed there for several years and gave birth to most of their children before they returned to Tsafe again owing to the growing insecurity.
“Even before the wedding, some of the family members, especially the grandmother of the wife, raised some observations about the legality of the marriage according to Islamic Sharia, but were ignored by the husband, wife and all those who participated in the matter.
“In fact, at one point, Alhaji Musa was becoming angry whenever he was reminded about the problem. It is not that the case was just raised only recently. The issue was raised in 2019, but was ignored by the family.”
After it was learnt that the couple were not willing to take the matter seriously, Tsafe Emirate Council was notified and the council forwarded the matter to the local government’s Shura Council.
After thrashing the issue thoroughly through the provisions of the Holy Qur’an and other books of Islamic Jurisprudence, the Shura Council recommended that the marriage should be voided.
However, the council ascertained the legitimacy of the children the couple gave birth to, saying the couple had married out of ignorance and that would not affect the legitimacy of the children. The council added that the children could inherit their father or mother.
Parts of the recommendations the Shura Council forwarded to the Tsafe Emirate Council, were that the husband should divorce the wife and he should do that in secret to the extent that not even his neighbours should be in the know.
In addition to that, since the husband is financially stable, he should look into the possibility of giving her something tangible from his assets as alimony.
After the Shura Council passed the recommendations to the emirate, the couple were summoned and notified of the stand, their union and the husband promised to look into the recommendations with a view to adopting them.
However, some residents, who spoke with Daily Trust, said Alhaji Musa refused to end the union after he began to listen to some individuals who were telling him that it was the local government Izala movement and the Hisbah commission that were hell bent on ending his marriage with Wasila.
“Since then he refused to adopt the recommendations of the local government Shura Council insisting that the union is legitimate despite the fact that the matter was taken before Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi who reaffirmed the earlier position of the local government Shura Council.
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