As usual, people miss the point about the Emir of Kano marrying an 18-year old chick.
Under Nigerian laws, an 18-year old is an adult and can definitely make his/her own choices, including getting married.
But that's where the validity ends. I don't support the Emir marrying such a young lady and I have two reasons:
1. For a region that is already bedeviled with the problem of girl-brides, seeing another young girl getting married early (even if 18) does nothing to assuage the problem. And this is reported to be the second 18-year old to be married by Emir Sanusi, also his fourth wife.
2. The lady just finished secondary school. The North is known for low level of education, both girls and boys. The very few ones that manage to finish primary school hardly go to secondary school. The stats are even more grim for the girls - less than two-thirds of those who enroll complete primary school and even fewer girls finish secondary school (See this). I also understand that less than 10% of those that finish secondary school go to university as most are married off early. There have been campaigns by NGOs to get more northern girls into University. It's been a rather difficult campaign but the groups have been forging ahead, even in the face of little cooperation from Northern leaders. Now the present Emir of Kano, who is arguably the most educated and widely traveled Emir in history, has married another young high school grad. Any decision to further her education now depends entirely on her husband. Even if the Emir allows her to go to the university from his house, it's beside the point - the fact is that it does not encourage other girls to attend University before they get married. This is rather unfortunate and is morally wrong of the Emir Sanusi, as in my view part of his role as Emir is to tackle the problems of the North which are both many and well-documented.
Some people have defended the Emir and his babe. Fine. We can't all agree and of course like I said the Emir has not committed any sin, whether to the Quran (I assume) or the Nigerian Constitution. But most of the problems of the North cannot be tackled by either the Quran or the Constitution anyway. It requires people who identify the problems and are committed to solving them. Those using examples of the US and issues of fornication are either being willfully ignorant or being clever by half. I know I will not be encouraging my daughter to get married at 18 and before she goes to the university, even though the final decision rests totally on her.
