LET’S TALK DIVORCE (Pt. 3)

Third on the list is the behaviour of the Respondent. This one is simply saying that if the behaviour of the Respondent is such that the Petitioner is not expected to cope with him/her, the Court should grant a divorce.

The question now is this-what can we call “bad behaviour”? This is for the Court to define, but here are some examples- a serious assault leading to medical conditions, mental illness of a spouse (if such illness make it difficult for the Petitioner to live with the Respondent), if the Respondent has committed rape, sodomy (having sex with his/her sex), bestiality (i.e., having sexual intercourse with an animal), habitual drunkenness, constantly being convicted (that is the Respondent is always being arrested for one offence or another and sentenced to jail, when the person comes out again, the person will commit another offence that will cause him to be arrested and convicted again).

There is also imprisonment (here the Respondent has probably been sentenced to either death by hanging or life imprisonment or for a long period of time, let us say five years and upwards- for instance a woman whose husband has been sent to prison for kidnapping or terrorism), there is also attempt to murder a spouse ( if a spouse can prove that the other partner in the marriage tried to kill him/her or caused him/her grievous bodily harm like disfiguring, maiming etc., the Court would grant divorce in that case) and the list goes on and on.

The fourth on the list is presumption of the death of spouse. The Court will grant a divorce order if the Petitioner can prove that he/she believes that the Respondent is dead even if he or she has not seen a dead body. This can actually be proved if the Respondent has been absent from the life of the Petitioner for more than seven years. I mean no seeing, no communication, no words, etc., nothing for the Petitioner to have it at the back of his/her mind that the Respondent is alive.  Note that if the divorce proceedings start and the Respondent suddenly shows up, the Court will not grant the order.

The fifth fact on the list is Desertion. This to me is quite similar with “presumption of death of spouse”, the slight difference is that the Petitioner is fully aware that the Respondent is not dead, but has decided to desert the Petitioner for a period of one year. This is saying that the Respondent just woke up one morning and “Japa” without the petitioner’s consent, and he/she has stayed away for a period of one year. The Respondent obviously intends to end all marital obligations and duties it owes the Petitioner, stays away from his/her spouse permanently without any good reason and does so without the consent of the Petitioner. So, if a woman wakes up and relocates to the United Kingdom, without her husband’s consent, refuses to return home despite different plea without just cause and stops all communication with her husband for a period of one year. This can be said to be desertion. In fact, moving to a separate apartment with all these conditions can be seen as desertion and is a ground for divorce.

The sixth on the list is living apart. This can happen in either of two ways:

1. that both parties (both the husband and wife) had lived in separate houses for a period of three years;
2. that both parties have lived separately for a period of two years without the respondent objecting/opposing the grant of the order.

Let me simplify this. The first one is saying that if both couples have lived separately (in different houses) for a period of three years, any of them can come before the Court and ask for the marriage to be dissolved, and same will be granted even if the other spouse should come and oppose the granting of the order to dissolve the marriage (that is, come to court and say that he/she doesn’t want the marriage dissolve).

The second one on the other hand is to the effect that when a couple have lived separately for a period of two years, one of the them can bring a petition to court seeking the dissolution of the marriage, and if the other party does not object to the order being granted, the Court would dissolve the marriage. The question here is, what happens if the other party objects to the granting of the order? The answer is that it would not be granted.

Note: living separately is not living in separate rooms, but separate houses.

The last on the list is failure to comply with a decree of restitution of conjugal right. This implies that the Respondent is refusing to cohabit with the Petitioner despite an order of the Court mandating this. This would mean that for instance, a woman left her matrimonial home for four months, her husband knowing where she is decides to bring a petition before the Court, asking the Court to order his wife to restitute his conjugal rights. After the Court grants the order, the woman refuses to return to the house for a continuous period of one year, the man is then at liberty to file for the dissolution of the marriage.

A woman who complains that for the past few months her husband has been living with another woman in a house that is not their matrimonial home can apply to the court to ask her husband to grant her conjugal right. If after a year the court makes the order, the woman would be allowed by law to seek a divorce from the marriage and vice versa.

This is the main ground for divorce in Nigeria, anything else would be as difficult as it can be.