Recently, a customary court sitting in Akure dissolved a 23-year marriage, criticizing the wife’s lover for adopting kids and challenging the Igbo naming tradition. The news was subsequently reported on -October 11, 2023, by Thenigerialawyer.com. According to the court, the Igbo custom of kids bearing step-dad’s name is ‘Evil.’
The dissolved marriage was between a Lagos-based church founder, Prophet Obayan, and wife, Prophetess Chibuzor Obayan. The estranged wife, Chibuzor, had changed the names of the children to that of her new lover, who was a former member of the husband’s church.
Obayan, the founder of Divine Prophetic Solutions Prayers Ministry located off Arowojobe Street, Ladipo, Lagos, dragged his estranged wife to the court in Akure to challenge the snatching of his four children by a member of his church and sought the return of the paternity of the children.
During the trial, the respondent, under cross-examination, alluded to the fact that since the petitioner did not pay her bride price, her new husband, who paid the same, has the right to have them bear his name in accordance with Igbo custom.
The presiding president, Segun Stephen Rotiba, held that the Igbo custom exuded by the respondent and her witnesses that the children of the union can bear Mr Abua Obi’s surname was atavistic, barbaric, evil, ungodly, irrational, unsensational, crass, gross, crude, unwary, provocative, ungodly, discriminatory and insensible.
It is trite that for customary law practices to be enforceable, it must not be repugnant to natural justice, equity, and good conscience. The repugnancy test is the process of determining the acceptance adoption or validity of a customary rule or the abolition/rejection of perceived unwholesome or inhuman customary law on the ground that it is obnoxious, discriminatory and inhumane, therefore repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. See Ukeje v. Ukeje (2014) 11 NWLR (PT.1418) 384, where a custom denying female children inheritance was held to be repugnant to natural justice, equity, and good conscience.
It must be noted that the rights of a biological father and the rights of the children of a union are protected by the law, notwithstanding any customary law practice to the contrary. In other words, section 27 of the Child Rights Act makes it a criminal offense to remove a child out of the custody of his father. Also, in custody matters, a child's interest is paramount, and nothing will justify taking a child out of his or her biological father. Also, section 14 of the Child Rights Act states it is only for educational or welfare purposes or by a court order that a child can be removed from the parents.
In agreement with the decision of the court above, taking the three children away from their biological father, Obayan, is not only a breach of his right to personal dignity but also an offense under Nigerian law. Thus, any culture that says otherwise is wicked and satanic, and those who are practicing the same are still living in the past.
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