IT was victory for women as the current administrative policy of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) compelling a married Nigerian woman to produce a letter of consent from her husband as a condition for issuance of international passport has been declared unconstitutional by the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt.
The presiding Judge, Justice G.K. Olotu, made this declaration in a suit by Dr. Priye Iyalla-Amadi, wife of renowned author, Elechi Amadi, against the director general of the Nigeria Immigration Service (first defendant) (NIS), (second defendant) and the service itself.
Justice Olotu, in his judgment, said this requirement for processing of application for international passport as it concerns married women, is a violation of Section 42 (1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution and Article 18(3) of the West African Charter on the People's Human Rights, being discriminatory on grounds of sex, hence unlawful and unconstitutional.
Following the loss of her international passport, Dr. Iyalla-Amadi had applied to the NIS for the issuance of another passport and the officer who attended to her request gave a list of documents that she would attach to the her formal application, among them a letter of consent from her husband.
Irked by this condition, the plaintiff protested against it on the ground that a mature adult citizen of the country like her should not require the consent of any person before she could be issued a Nigerian passport, but her protest fell on deaf ears, thus the decision to file the suit against the NIS.
The defendants did not really dispute the facts adduced by the plaintiff in their counter-affidavit but sought to justify the requirement of a letter of consent from the husband of a married woman who wants to be issued a Nigerian passport on the basis that Nigerian married women are classified alongside with minors by the government as persons who require consent from the head of the family.
NIS argued that the requirement for consent was put in place to perpetuate the authority of the man over his wife, no matter the status she had attained in society. It also stated that the requirement was set to avoid unnecessary breakdown of marriage institution in the country.
Another argument advanced by the NIS was that obtaining a Nigerian passport from the Federal Government by a Nigerian is a privilege, hence any person applying must fulfil all the conditions laid down by the sole agent of the government, which is the NIS.
But counsel to the plaintiff urged the court to declare the requirement unlawful and unconstitutional on the ground that it discriminates between Nigerian citizens on grounds of sex, contrary to Section 42 of the constitution.
She added that the requirement offends the equality of citizens' principle enshrined in Section 17 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Iyalla-Amadi' s counsel argued that the condition for issuance of passport to married women violates internationally- accepted standards of non-discrimination against women, which to Nigeria is a signatory.
Justice Olotu explained that he had directed the plaintiff and the defendants to present the facts they wished to rely on for and against the plaintiff's action.
According to him, while the plaintiff complied with the order of the court, the defendants did not. He also stated that the defendants did not challenge the averments in the affidavits of the plaintiff.
He observed that the defendants seemed to have thrown in their towel after filing what he called their spurious and sociological dissertation in the name of counter-affidavit.
The judge observed from the wordings of the constitutional provisions in Sections 17 (1) (2) and 42 of the 1999 Constitution that all citizens of Nigeria are put on the same pedestal irrespective of sex and status.
Olotu declared that the policy is obnoxious, repugnant and unconstitutional, stating that the defence of the defendants merely showed that the policy was a cunning, surreptitious and high-powered calculated attempt to subjugate women as if they are still in the medieval times.
According to him, "this kind of policy has no place in the 21st Century Nigeria."
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