A 14-year-old child bride identified as Wasilat Tasi'u has been accused of murdering her 35-year-old husband by putting rat poison in his food resulting to her being on trial and facing the possibility of receiving a death penalty.

The father of the child bride Isyaku Tasi'u said on Thursday that he is appealing to a Nigerian court that handles the case to spare his daughter from the death sentence. The husband, identified as Umar Sani, immediately died after eating the food prepared by his wife.

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Witnesses told the High Court in Gezawa, a town located 60 miles outside Kano, Nigeria, that Tasi'u did the killing only two weeks after being wed back in April this year. Three more people reportedly died after eating same meal that the husband did.

The prosecution, which is led by Lamido Soron-Dinki, the senior state council from the Kano State Ministry of Justice, is now asking for death penalty for the child bride for allegedly taking four lives.

Another witness, a seven-year-old girl identified as Hamziyya, was living in the same house as the couple. She relayed that Tasi'u gave her money to buy rat poison from a store.

However, the case not only questions the legality of putting a 14-year-old under trial for murder under criminal law, but it also raises the issue of the child bride's rights.

Child brides are common in the Muslim-dominated northern region of Nigeria.

According to Zubeida Nagee, a women's right activist in Kano, said that the child was married to a man she did not love but her parents forced her to marry him. Nagee and other activists have then written a letter to deputy governor of Kano to protest the child's case.

Tasi'u was a victim of the systematic abuse, Nagee added. She also pointed out that the blend of traditional customs, the Islamic law and Nigeria's constitutional law complicate the efforts to  help the young girls in Nigeria subjected to such situation.

Justice Mohammed Yahaya suspended the child bride's trial until December 22 this year. Tasi'u is now in the custody of the state juvenile department.

TagsNigeria, Child bride, killed husband, rat poison, Wasilat Tasi'u