So there is this famous Instagram skit maker that was secretly married but many people had no idea that she is married because she has been posing as a single lady. The husband was the one managing her until she came into the limelight and became famous.
Once she became famous and moved down to Lagos, she stated in her words that the husband was no longer on her level and that she was no longer interested in the marriage.
She started mingling and dating other famous Lagos-based entertainers; the husband cried and begged her for her to reconsider so that they could still make the marriage work but all the pleadings fell on deaf ears.
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The husband demanded that since she was no longer interested in marrying him and the marriage they did was customary marriage, she should return the bride price so that there could be some closure. The lady has been insisting that she will never return the bride price, reasons best known to her.
The matter was recently brought to me for a legal opinion and here is my legal opinion on the issue of what is and will become of the marriage legally speaking since the lady has insisted on not returning the bride price.
Customary marriage is recognized and acknowledged statutorily and the only valid way of entering into a valid customary marriage is by the payment of the bride price by the groom in accordance with the relevant cultural and traditional practices.
Customary divorce is also recognized under the act and the only acknowledged way of dissolving a marriage customarily is by the returning of the bride price paid back to the groom.
The court has upheld this custom of returning the bride price to validate a customary divorce in a plethora of cases.
In the case of Eze v. Omeke (1977) 1 ANSLR 136 the Court while ordering the bride to return the bride price since she said she was no longer interested in the marriage held that “Any order dissolving any customary law marriage without a subsequent order for the return or acceptance of the bride-price or dowry is meaningless. In fact, I’m the case of Tabitha Bawa v. Bawa Waziri CCKJ/CV/14/2011 the Court did not just order the return of the bride price, the court also ordered the lady to return every other incidental pre-marital expense back to the man.
Therefore, by the implication of court rulings, statutory provisions and acknowledged customary practices which has been judicially noticed, the returning of the bride price is what invalidates a customary marriage, so when the bride price is yet to be returned, the marriage is deemed to still be valid and existing and any of the parties who enters into another marriage can be held liable for bigamy.
My legal advice to the famous entertainer here in question is for her to return the bride price since she is no longer interested in the marriage as the returning of the bride price will mean that the marriage has been dissolved, not until she does that, she is and will still be deemed to be the lawfully wedded wife of the man.
Yet, read my perspective on this article as there are contradictions in the Nigerian laws.