The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Customary Court

  • ‘My husband ran away’

    A 27-year-old woman, Regina Uchechukwu, has prayed the Alakuko Customary Court in Lagos to dissolve her six-year-old marriage to Sharafa Adeyemi  for allegedly abandoning their children.

    She said:”My husband is a furniture maker. I met him in my hometown, Ogoja in Cross River State, when he was producing some furniture items for a bank. A few weeks after I told him I was pregnant, he ran away. I was so destabilised because I knew nothing about him or his family members.  When I was delivered of the twins, I called my husband to name the children, but he declined. To my chagrin, he said I should spend the money I was using to make the phone call to take care of the children.

    “Four years after, I traced my husband to Lagos, when the situation became unbearable.  My husband abandoned us in his hometown, where his brother lived. The suffering, however, worsened after my husband’s brother said he could no longer fend for us.

    “I had to remarry because I could not put up with my husband’s nonchalant attitude.  My current marriage is a blessing. My husband takes care of my children’s upkeep, except their school fees because he says their father is still hale and hearty. So, all I want from Sharafa is to be responsible for the education of his children.”

    However, Adeyemi denied the allegations, saying he gave Regina money when she was pregnant.

    He said: “She informed me of her pregnancy during a phone conversation. I asked a colleague who was still at her hometown to give her the sum of N10, 000 for her upkeep. I made her realise that I was experiencing a lull in my business. Even when she traced me to Lagos, I gave them N400 daily. I had to avoid her because she later told me she and my colleague had an affair. I was also told she was fond of returning home with men at odd hours.  Consequently, I had to abandon her and the children when I realised she was expecting another child.”

    The court President, Chief Awos Awosola, ordered Adeyemi to pay N32, 000 for the outstanding balance of the children’s upkeep and advised the parties to obey the law.

    The case was adjourned till October 23.

  • ‘Why Lagos is reviewing Customary Court laws‘

    The Lagos State Customary Laws is being reviewed to accommodate criminal law, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye, has said.

    He spoke at a workshop organised for Customary Court Judges by the Lagos State Judicial Service Commission in Ikeja.

    He said some criminal offences would, henceforth, be handled by customary courts.

    Ipaye said the government was inclined to accept suggestions from those advocating that some neighbourhood criminal offences of lesser gravity be handled at the local level.

    “We are bringing this power back. When we do, we rely on you to display appropriate sense of responsibility in dispensing justice,” he said.

    He urged customary court judges to apply criminal laws only in extreme cases when the criminal jurisdiction  is restored.

    Part of the reasons why criminal laws were initially expunged from the law books was to prevent judges at the local level from being influenced and using their position to send people to prison arbitrarily, he said.

    Ipaye urged the  judges to shun corruption.

    Former chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House Assembly, Abdul-Lateef Hakeem lamented that some people resort to self- help and engage in jungle justice because they have lost faith in the system.

    Hakeem, who delivered a key-note address on the theme, “Administration of justice at the grassroots:Myth or Reality”, admonished the judges against miscarriage of justice, stressing that they should use their position to influence the life of other members of the society positively.

    Quoting several passage from the Bible, Hon. Hakeem told judges to administer justice fairly. He reminded them that they were writing their own history in everything that they do.

    The Chief Judge of the state, Justice Ayotunde Phillips, who was represented on the occasion by the Deputy Registrar of the state High Court, Mrs. A.O. Soladoye charged the judges to maintain a high level of honesty and integrity in the administration of justice at the grassroots.

    “Remember that the Lagos State judiciary is the foremost judiciary in the country and we must be seen to be maintaining that lead,” she said.

    The Executive Secretary, Lagos State Judicial Service Commission, Mrs. Ayodele Odugbesan said jurisdiction is important at all levels of the courts in the state.

    Mrs. Odugbesan said this was why high premium is place on the training and re-training of judges, particularly customary court judges.

  • Court dissolves 21-year-old marriage over infidelity, threat to life

    An Igando Customary Court in Lagos on Tuesday dissolved a 21-year-old marriage between Ondeku Ibrahim and Hassanatu Ibrahim over infidelity and threat to life.

    The court President, Mr R. I. Adeyeri, said that all efforts to reconcile the couple had proved futile, as the petitioner insisted on divorce.

    “The court has no choice than to dissolve the union, in spite of the fact that the wife still claims she loves her husband.

    “Both parties are no longer husband and wife, they are free to go their separate ways,” he said.

    Adeyeri ruled that the custody of the children, Nurudeen, 14, Ahmed, 10, should be referred to the family court within the Lagos Judicial Division, while Lateef, 21, and Mohammed,18, are old enough to decide where to live.

    The president also ordered the petitioner to pay N50, 000 for rehabilitation costs for the respondent.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ibrahim had filed a suit seeking for the dissolution of the marriage over wife’s infidelity and threat to his life.

    Ibrahim, 45, a school proprietor, told the court that his wife, Hassanatu, was having an affair outside their matrimonial home.

    “I caught my wife with a man locked inside her shop. I knocked, for her to open the shop, but she refused.

    “I called her phone, it rang but she quickly switched it off. After I waited for hours and they refused to open the door, I left,” the husband said.

    He also said that his wife was threatening his life, his members of staff, and the parents of his students.

    “She called my family in the village that she would kill me one day, that if she is unable to do it personally, she will send someone to do it for her.

    “She is also threatening the lives of members of my staff and the parents of my students with bottles, stones and cutlass.

    “She will stand at the gate, either with a cutlass or bottle, threatening to stab anyone who wanted to gain entrance into the school premises,” the estranged husband said.

    Ibrahim said he had lost 20 teachers because of her action, while parents kept withdrawing their children from the school.

    Responding, Hassanatu Ibrahim, 38, a hairdresser, said that the man her husband saw in her shop was a bricklayer that wanted to help her build her house.

    “I locked both of us inside my shop because I wanted to give him money to start the building and I do not want anyone to know about the house,” she said.

    She described her husband as an ingrate and that she brought her husband from the village, and got him his first job, and that they both established the school 10 years ago.

    The wife said that their agreement then was to share the profit together.

    Hassanatu said that her husband refused to abide by the agreement, as he did not want her to know anything about the school.

    She said that her husband had evicted her from their matrimonial home.

    “My husband rewarded me by throwing my property out six months ago, and also stole my N385, 000.

    “That was why I used to go to the school to harass them, so that he could give me my money,’’ she said.