Court declares Igbo bride price custom unGodly for coming between 2 consenting adults
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
A court has declared as barbaric, unGodly, and evil an Igbo custom which denies a father access to his children because of non-payment of bride price to the wife’s family.
“The custom that tends to punish one person when two consenting adults are involved in the act is nothing but the highest element of insensitivity and servitude,” an Akure Magistrate’s Court ruled.
Magistrate Segun Rotiba made the remark when he ruled on the legal tussle between Theophilus Obayan, a prophet, and his estranged wife, Lilian Chibuzor, a prophetess.
Obayan, a prophet, is Yoruba; Chibuzor, prophetess, is Igbo from Abia. Both headed the Divine Prophetic Solutions Prayers Ministry in the Ladipo area of Lagos.
Chibuzor left her husband to marry one of his spiritual sons, Abua Obi, and changed her children’s surname to Obi.
Obayan filed a divorce suit on the grounds she changed his children’s surname to her lover’s.
He also asked the court to dissolve the marriage of 23 years on allegation of disobedience, misunderstanding, lies, manipulation, abuse, hate, and rage.
Obayan challenged the snatching of his four children by a member of his church, and sought their return as well as him having custody of the children.
Rotiba dissolved the marriage on grounds the parties have lost interest in the union and granted Obayan the right to reclaim his four children.
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Evidence before court
From the evidence before the court, the Magistrate noted, Chibuzor alluded to the fact under cross-examination that since Obayan did not pay her bride price, her new husband who paid it has the right to have them bear his name in accordance with Igbo custom, per reporting by The Nation.
“In the same breadth,” Rotiba added, “I find the Igbo custom exuded by the respondent and her witnesses that the children of the union can bear Mr Abua Obi as their surname, atavistic, barbaric, evil, ungodly, irrational, unsensational, crass, gross, crude, unwary, provocative, ungodly, discriminatory and insensible.
“The custom that tends to punish one person when two consenting adults are involved in the act is nothing but the highest element of insensitivity and servitude.
“I condemn this custom in the strongest terms.
“While the matter was on, a publication was made on February 2, 2023 in Vanguard newspaper changing the surname of the first two children of the parties to Abua Obi.
“Aside the fact that complicit to change the surname of the first two children has been establishqed against the respondent, it also amounts to subjudice as no action is expected to be taken on the subject matter by whoever, when the matter is pending before the court.
“This is a complete affront to the court. I say no more. In conclusion, the court hereby dissolves the union between the parties, having broken down irretrievably.
“The court hereby declares persona non grata, the custom of the respondent awarding paternal personality to a man who is not the biological father of the children.
“The court hereby invalidates and renders null and void the publication changing the surname of the 1st and 2nd children from Obayan to Abua Obi.
“The court also invalidates any other publication or whatsoever changing the surname of the children from Obayan to Abua Obi during the pendency of this case.”
