Pat Stevens/
The Federal Government has said that most worship centres conducting marriages in Nigeria were doing so illegally.
It said that only 314 places of worship were licensed to contract marriages in the country in accordance with the statutory Marriage Act.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Georgina Ehuriah, disclosed this in Abuja today, during a one-day stakeholders’ conference on the conduct of statutory marriage in accordance with the Marriage Act Cap M6, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, as amended.
She explained that “presently, only about 4,689 licensed places of worship in Nigeria have updated their records with the Ministry of Interior of which only 314 have renewed their licences to conduct statutory marriages.”
According to her, “the implication of this is that marriages conducted in unlicensed places of worship are not in line with the Marriage Act and cannot serve legal purposes when the need arises and such unlicensed places of worship are operating contrary to Section 6(1) of the Marriage Act”.
She stated further that the decision to organise the stakeholders’ conference was borne out of the ministry’s experience in the discharge of its duties, which suggested that there were extant issues in the administration of the conduct of statutory marriages that required the mutual attention of key stakeholders.
Ehuria said that the ministry was already building a database of all statutory marriages conducted in Nigeria and had also developed a database of all places of worship licensed for celebration of marriages.
She also disclosed that the ministry had already put in place machinery to kick-start the process for the amendment of the Marriage Act to adequately meet the needs of citizens in the 21st century.
She added that the ministry was also working on a platform that would make it possible for couples whose certificates were not issued in line with the Act to rectify the anomaly.
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