Did you know that you are entitled to compensation if someone serves you breakfast? Let’s look at these five weird Nigerian Laws that many people are unaware of.
Marriage can help you get away with a crime
This might sound like zobo but walk with me. As we all know, many religions preach the message of the husband being the head of the wife. And this has sadly been used to excuse discrimination and abuse against women, but did you know you can also use this to get away with some crimes?
According to the Section 33 of the Criminal Code Act of the Nigerian constitution, a woman in Christian marriage isn’t criminally responsible for any crime she’s compelled to do by her husband in his presence? The only exception to this is if the offence committed is punishable by death, causes grievous harm or has the intention to cause grievous harm to another person.
You can be punished for serving breakfast
A song goes, “Na everybody go chop breakfast”, but you can suffer from a broken heart and make money from it at the same time.
According to the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1990, if there’s an agreement to marry, and your partner decides to break off the relationship, you can sue for “Breach of promise to marry”. There are, however, two conditions to this; first, you must present proof that there was a promise of marriage, and next, evidence must be provided that your partner failed to fulfil that promise.
Witches belong in prison
Despite what Nollywood would have us believe, witchcraft isn’t welcome with open arms in Nigeria. According to the Section 210 of the Criminal Code Act, anyone found by actions or statements to have the power of witchcraft is guilty of a misdemeanour and liable to two years in prison.
You can be flogged by the court
According to the Section 18 of the Criminal Code Act, if a boy under 17 is found guilty of an offence, the court, at its discretion, can order for him to be flogged in addition or substitution to any other punishment.
You can kind of get away with murder
I’m not quite sure why this Law exists given the loopholes it has. But according to Section 314 of the Criminal Code Act, a person won’t be considered to have killed another if the death of the other person doesn’t happen within one year and a day of the cause of death.
An instance of this would be if you were to hit someone with your car, and the person dies due to complications after 366 days from the accident.
Hopefully, you put this information to good use, and it serves you one way or the other…
What Else Happened This Week
JAMB Reschedules UTME Examinations
For many of us, our earliest memories of shege started with the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), popularly known as JAMB. It looks like things aren’t close to changing anytime soon. Tuesday, April 25, 2023, marked the first day of the UTME; it was riddled with technical issues.
Out of the 708 examination centres, about 100 could not hold exams due to the technical challenges. This, of course, left many parents and candidates frustrated as they cursed the system.
The board in charge of the UTME, i.e. the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has released a statement saying their technical team is on top of the issue, and all affected candidates will be rescheduled. It’s 2023, and it’s unfortunate JAMB still has the same problems it did a decade ago.
Video of the week
Question of the week
On April 26, 2023, Multichoice announced its plans to increase DSTV and GOTV package prices by 17%. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has given Multichoice seven days to reverse this price hike. Do you think Multichoice will rescind its decision?
Ehen one more thing…
The federal government has implemented a 40% increase in the salaries of some civil servants. Medical practitioners, non-teaching university workers and the police were excluded from this benefit. Find out why here.
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