Also for a marriage to constitute a marriage under the Act, the marriage must have a marriage certificate issued by a government approved marriage registry or a licensed place of worship. The mere fact that a marriage was celebrated in church does not constitute a marriage under the Act, as such a marriage must comply with the requirements of the Act to be a statutory marriage. A church marriage without more is a customary marriage and will not have the benefits of a statutory marriage except the church is licensed to celebrate marriage-see Nwangwu v. Ubani (1997) 10 N.W.L.R Pt 526 p559 REASONS FOR DIVORCE There are a plethora of factors which makes marriages breakdown. Some of these factors will be classified under two heading: (1) Poverty and (2) Adultery. Poverty With respect to poverty, money is the life-wire of every marriage; it brings comfort and stability to marriages. The absence of money could make either of the partners to resort to gambling, excessive intake of alcohol and drugs and crime, which might lead to the collapse of the marriage. Adultery With respect to Adultery, nothing kills a marriage faster than an adulterous partner. Adultery is cancerous to marriage. GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE There are different procedures and forms available to a petitioner who seeks to annul his or her marriage under the Act. They include (a) Dissolution of marriage, (b) Nullity of a voidable marriage (c) Nullity of a void marriage (d) Judicial separation (e) Restitution of conjugal right and (f) Jactitation of marriage. However, the most ubiquities form of petition under the Act is the Petition for Decree of Dissolution of marriage. It is the most widely litigated petition. In fact, out of the entire petition that pour into the registry of the High Court, nearly 95 percent of them is for decree of dissolution of marriage; while the remaining 5 percent is shared among the other forms of petition. It is on this basis that the decree for dissolution of marriage would be used as a ground for divorce. Under section 15 (1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act, the sole ground for dissolution of marriage under the Act is that the marriage has broken down irretrievable – Ekrebe vs. Ekrebe (1999) 3 N W L R (P+596) 594. By this the Act has created only one ground for divorce, yet the facts which may lead to a marriage breaking down irretrievably are provided for in section 15(2) (a)-(h) of the Act once the petitioner has satisfied the court of one or more of the following facts: (a) That the respondent has and willfully and persistently refused to consummate the marriage; (b) Adultery and intolerable to live with the respondent; (c) Behave in such a way that the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent; (d) That the respondent deserted the petitioner for a continuous period of at least one year immediately preceding the presentation of the petition; (e) That the parties to the marriage have lived apart for a period of at least 2 years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition and the respondent does not object to a decree been granted; (f) Parties have lived apart for a continuous period of at least 3 years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition; (g) Failure to comply with a decree of dissolution of conjugal right made under the Act (h) Presumption of death. The petitioner must prove at least one of the facts contained in Section 15(2) (a) (h) of the Act before he can succeed. Where the petitioner fails to so prove, the petition for dissolution will be dismissed. The mere fact that the petitioner alleges that the respondent is a witch, or is diabolic or the mere accusation that the respondent is not a good person will not be enough reason to dissolve a marriage. JURISDICTION Jurisdiction here simply means the court that has the power to entertain divorce proceedings. Section 2 of the Matrimonial Causes Act states that a person may institute an action under this Act in the High Court of any state of the federation or the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory. Thus, it is the High court of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory that has jurisdiction over divorce proceedings. If divorce proceeding is brought before any court aside the High Court of a state, the proceeding is a nullity ab initio. A simply analogy will suffice here. If Mr A married Mrs A in a marriage registry in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in the year 2010 and in 2015 Mr A and Mrs A moved to Lagos after their marriage but later Mrs A was seduced by one rich politician and Mr. A wants a divorce. Where would Mr. A, go to institute the proceeding for divorce? The law is that he may go back to Port Harcourt in Rivers State or he may go institute the divorce proceeding in Lagos where he is currently residing or that he can go to any state of the federations and the proceedings will be competent. However, consider a situation where Mr A while still residing in Lagos and his wife, Mrs A is also residing in Lagos decided to take the matter to the High Court of Kano State so that the proceedings will be inconvenient and difficult for Mrs A. Though the proceeding is still valid and competent, but the principle of ‘Forum Convenience’ will be brought to play in the issue of Jurisdiction so as to ameliorate the issue of Inconvenience. For the court to have Jurisdiction for a petition for dissolution of Marriage, the petition must be accompanied by the following documents: (a) A verifying Affidavit to verify the fact stated in the petition (b) A notice of the petition in appropriate form i.e. forms 8, 9 or 10 (c) A form of acknowledgement of service by the respondent and; (d) A copy of the Marriage certificate It should also be noted that, there are instances where the marriage certificate has been lost, destroyed or one of the spouse has refused to give up the marriage certificate as he or she will be unwilling to submit to divorce proceedings. The proper step under this scenario is for the petitioner to apply for the certified true copy (CTC) of the marriage certificate at the appropriate marriage registry.]]>
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