NOT a few couples must have become jittery following the purported judgment of a Federal High Court, Lagos division, which reportedly voided all the statutory marriages held at the Ikoyi registry. The misleading report doing the rounds on social media must have emanated from a mischievous interpretation of the court’s verdict on the subject because the judgment being referenced was very categorical on the continued validity of the marriage licences issued by the Ikoyi marriage registry and that of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. It is, therefore, unclear where the mischief makers got the direct obverse of this verdict which they imported into the Federal High Court’s judgment. The judgment also reportedly ordered the closure, with immediate effect, of all federal marriage registries opened by the Federal Government, including that of Ikoyi. The foregoing does not represent the judgment of the Federal High Court as it will be wrong and patently at variance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the Marriage Act and judicial precedents on the subject. By virtue of Item 61 of the 1st Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the issue of formation, annulment and other matrimonial causes are on the exclusive legislative list which is strictly under the purview of the Federal Government.
This constitutional provision may sound rather absurd and even portray the Federal Government as meddlesome on mundane issues, but that is the extant provision of the supreme law of the land, and it is the law. Besides, there are competent and subsisting court judgments which derived essentially from the provisions in item 61 of the Constitution and the Marriage Act on the same subject, which are yet to be appealed. In other words, by reason of the explicit provisions of the extant laws and judicial precedents which are also laws, the controversy over which tier of government is legally empowered to conduct statutory marriages and issue valid marriage certificates has been settled. The Federal Government is empowered by law while local governments are enabled by the power delegated to them by the Federal Government to conduct statutory marriages. In addition, section 1(i) to the 4th schedule of the 1999 Constitution states the functions of local governments to include registration of births, deaths and marriages.
The alleged judgment which has stirred the hornet’s nest was unnecessary in the first place, because it is inappropriate and indeed unlawful for a judge to sit in an appeal against the judgment of a court of coordinate jurisdiction. The judge ought to have declined jurisdiction and urged the dissatisfied party to refer the matter to the Court of Appeal for determination one way or another. Indeed, the instant case was tantamount to an abuse of court process because the same suit was brought the third time to a court of coordinate jurisdiction. We agree that a better arrangement in a federal structure is for the local governments to be fully in charge of statutory and other variants of marriages and the registration of same but the 1999 Constitution has to be amended before that can happen.
Currently, the Federal Government is lawfully superintending over marriages under the Act through the Federal Ministry of Interior which has in turn delegated the power to the local governments. This is inappropriate in a supposedly federal system but it is the law. However, the issue promises to continue to be polemical and recur until the extant laws and practices are tweaked to reflect the spirit and letters of federalism. Pray, what is the business of the Federal Government with marriage issues when it has yet to discharge itself creditably in handling issues of greater import like national security, international relations and so on? And if for obvious administrative convenience, the Federal Ministry of Interior has delegated the power to contract statutory marriages to the local governments, why is such power not ceded completely to that level of government that has been doing a good job of it? This is one out of a litany of contradictions prevalent in Nigeria’s federalism which in practice operates essentially as a unitary system of government.
It is sad that despite the apparent and grave inefficiency, ineffectiveness and corruption being bred by the concentration of responsibilities, power and resources at the centre, the Federal Government is opposed to the devolution of power to other tiers of government. And truth be told, it is not the central government alone that is fixated on absolute power and responsibilities; the subnational governments are also guilty as they have consistently resisted all executive and legislative attempts at the federal level to give financial autonomy to the local governments, state legislatures and the judiciary. The selfish disposition of executives at both federal and state levels to the appropriation of power is a carryover and one of the negative consequences of the long period of military dictatorship and the defective constitution it bequeathed to the country. However, the country has witnessed over 20 years of uninterrupted democracy, so why has it been a herculean task for the operators to amend the constitution to reflect the imperatives of devolution of powers and responsibilities to states and local governments?
The point we are making is that notwithstanding their purported annulment by a Federal High Court’s judgment, the marriage licences issued to couples by the Ikoyi marriage registry and that of the FCT, Abuja, are valid because they are backed by law. However, it ordinarily should not have been the place of the Federal Government to be involved with marriage issues in the face of daunting national challenges. There are so many other issues beyond the fatuity of the Federal Government’s involvement in matrimonial causes within the system arising from laws that concentrate power at the centre, and they have continued to constitute a cog in the wheel of national progress. Nonetheless, it is not too late for the Federal Government to make necessary and genuine moves for a review of those laws that foisted questionable choices on it in terms of its relations with the other tiers of government. The review of the extant and relevant statutes to devolve power to the other levels of government is crucially important if the Federal Government must steer clear of controversies in its relationship with the lower levels of government and free itself from its unwieldy responsibilities and powers that are negatively impacting its capacity to get down to brass tacks.
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