On Marriage and Divorce: Custody Palaver

Storytime!

Umunne m, unu amakwana na ihe na eme.

Photo Credit: Artem Makarov

Then, when the ASUU strike had just begun.

 It was like a sprouting bud, tentative and shaky, unsure if it will live or die. It reminded me of the seedling of an iroko still learning the ministerings of its roots.  By now, we must have heard of the iroko whose roots tore down people’s huts and houses.

It was still a warning strike. There was no need travelling long distances back home only to come back a month later. With the incident of the previous strike fresh in our memory, some left right away. "This is Nigeria," they said. "Wake up!"

I wished we had listened. Perhaps, we would have long began our search for skill acquisition centres. And learned enough to count our dollars. I am sure they are enjoying the feelings of being seers and prophets (Can someone tell them to give a good prediction this time).

Trying to keep busy in those days, I signed up for an internship with a law firm. I (together with other interns) went to court to observe court proceedings and get a taste of what the daily life of a lawyer entails. And there comes my story.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

It was one of those visits to the court, like every other day. Nothing special. Those days when you sit  tired, bored, wondering why the court's seat was too hard and faces too sad. Those days when you try not to zone out while waiting for the baptismal revelation that this is the right career niche for you. That you didn’t veer off somewhere. Then something pops up to spice it up. Dissolution of marriages!

Forgive my sadistic inclination, it happens to be my favorite part of watching litigation. Marital issues have never been more interesting. We all picked up our pens eager to prove our analytical skills and apportion blame in right measures. In the end, we stared. At the man. The woman. Then at each other, too speechless for words.

These were things we read about and watched in films. Things that happened in the white man’s countries. So unheard of here. In Nigerian legal system, however agreeable the couples are to a divorce, they still have to undertake the rigours of the court procedures.

But that was not the problem. The couple had this calm demeanour around them. Like people that have come to terms with their reality and have made their peace with it. The man, apparently moved on, now resided in Kumasi, Ghana. He kept assuring the judge that it was only a divorce. He wasn’t getting remarried. 

'Both follow each other,' the judge said.

We laughed. Determined not to be burdened with crying children, the wife, a banker with a tight schedule said she didn’t want custody. The court’s little murmurs quietened at the hit of the gravel.

Photo Credit: Pixabay  The issue had just begun. The man, angry about a squabble kept the children away from the wife(ex) on her agreed visiting days. Since the man lived in Ghana, the children stayed with his brother, their uncle. He gave instructions not to let his wife come near them.

As usual, like in such divorce cases, we took our turns supporting the woman, who must have longed to see her children but was denied of her maternal rights. We imagined her pain. A deep seated pain that must have broken her heart. On her only free day! We found it unfair. So we judged.

The Judge agreed with us. He condemned the husband’s action and threatened to take the children from him if he ever did it again.  In his attempt to be amicable, he asked the woman to choose how long she wanted to spend with her children. Then it came. 

She said 30 mins. Yes, you saw it well. She, who has not seen her children for days – weeks if you include the denied access days, asks for 30 mins. The court broke into chaos. Everyone spoke at once. Each giving a litany of reasons against or in her defense. After a while, the tables were turned and the argument continued. It took a while for the constant hitting of the Judge’s gravel to quieten the crowd.

Pixabay

The wife, suspicious that she must have said something detrimental to her case, made a poor attempt to rectify her mistake.

"One hour, my lord," she said.

Again, the court broke into another commotion. 

By then, the mothers close to her were already giving her strings of advice on parenting.

"If she missed out on wifehood, should she almost miss out on motherhood?" they asked. For each question the judge asked, they had a thousand more.

The man basked in the euphoria of ‘I told you so’. "This woman don’t have sense. Why else do you think I left her?"

And us, unsure of what to make of the situation, sat and watched.

To every Rose that grew from Concrete: Blossom!