NANA YAA KONADU v. ALHAJI ABDUL RASHEED

APPAU, JSC:-

My Lords, the appeal before us is the culmination of what, prima facie, appeared to be a simple matrimonial cause ignited by the woman in the marriage (as petitioner) against her husband (the respondent), for the dissolution of their ordinance marriage. The second and last relief the petitioner asked for, apart from the dissolution, was an order for the custody or maintenance (as she put it), of the two issues in the marriage. This second or last relief of the petitioner, which respondent also prayed for in respect of the younger child in his cross-petition, became redundant in the course of the trial, when all the two issues in the marriage attained adulthood. Petitioner did not seek any relief on property settlement, as her case was that she never acquired any property jointly with the respondent during the subsistence of the marriage, which needed to be shared. The only thing she said she had in common with respondent was a limited liability company called NAYAK COMPANY LTD which, according to her, the two of them established as the only shareholders and directors with fifty percent (50%) shares each.

However, as things turned out to be, the petition assumed a complex form resulting in its long journey to this apex Court, as a result of the respondent’s answer or reaction to it. In this answer, the respondent did not challenge the petitioner’s call for the dissolution of the marriage aside of the reasons behind the call. He however, denied petitioner’s assertion that they never jointly acquired any properties during the subsistence of the marriage. He contended that apart from NAYAK CO. LTD and another company called RASHIDA LTD, which the two of them formed, they jointly acquired several other properties; some in his name, some in petitioner’s name and others in their joint names. He mentioned fourteen (14) different properties, which he claimed the two acquired jointly in the course of their thirty-two (32) years of marriage, mainly through the operations of their two companies. He accordingly cross-petitioned for the dissolution of the marriage, an order for custody of their younger child who was then sixteen (16) years old and then, an order for the distribution of all the properties jointly acquired by them as itemized under paragraph (3) of his answer to the petition. It was this answer and cross-petition by the respondent that jolted the petitioner to admit for the first time that she indeed acquired properties jointly with the res