By Sunday Ani
Mrs. Jennifer Ovuede, wife of late Monday Akpoviroroh Ovuede, has petitioned the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the Inspector General of Police (IGP), and the Department of State Service (DSS), over an alleged attempt by her co-wife, Mrs. Henrietta Ovuede, to substitute her alleged forged marriage certificate from the Ikoyi Registry.
Jennifer had earlier petitioned the Minister of Interior, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, and the National Judicial Council (NJC), over the same matter.
Three women, Mrs Henrrietta, Mrs Jennifer, and Mrs Angela Afegua Ovuede, widows of the late Ovuede, are locked in a fierce legal battle to determine who has the legal right to the letters of administration over the deceased’s estate.
After Mr. Ovuede’s death in June 2023, each of the three women started laying claim, as his legal wife, to obtain the letters of administration for his estate.
Mrs Henrietta was said to have presented a certified true copy (CTC) of a marriage certificate dated October 7, 2006. She went ahead to support her claim with a sworn affidavit, asserting that her marriage to the deceased was legitimate, and dismissing the deceased’s union to the other two women as invalid.
She was alleged to have gotten a judgment in her favour in Lagos High Court (Suit No. LD/6460FPM/2023) presided over by Justice Balogun to obtain the letters of administration in order to sideline the other two women, Angela and Jennifer.
However, Mrs Henrientta in an effort to consolidate her position to seek the letters of administration, once again, in suit NoLD/7674EPM/2024 presented the same CTC of the alleged ‘forged’ marriage certificate in her statement of claim, affirming its validity under oath, but at this point, Jennifer’s lawyer was quick to detect some obvious absence of features of a valid marriage certificate, which raised serious doubt about its genuineness.
Daily Sun gathered that Jennifer, through her lawyer, Patrick Agun, challenged Henrietta’s claim in a motion filed before Justice Basua in suit No LD/7674EPM/2024, insisting that she remained the legitimate wife of the deceased, and as such, is entitled to the letters of administration. Her motion, accompanied by a sworn affidavit, challenged the authenticity of the marriage certificate presented by Henrrietta.
Jennifer contended that Henrietta’s marriage certificate had all the imprimaturs of forgery, (a.k.a Oluwole), as it lacked the essential features required of a valid marriage certificate, as outlined in the Marriage Act.
She pointed out that on the face of the said certificate, it has no signature of the parties to the marriage except typed names, neither has it the signature of the registrar of marriage except typed names, nor the names or signatures of witnesses to the marriage. She further argued that the above features, which are compulsory components of a marriage certificate, according to sections 25 and 26 of the Marriage Act, were completely absent from Henrietta’s marriage certificate, with which she procured the letters of administration, upon which she got a favourable judgement from a Lagos High Court to take charge of late Ovuede’s estate.
Jennifer further alleged that when Henrietta discovered that the marriage certificate she had been parading to obtain the letters of administration over the deceased’s estate, has been found to be forged, she and her lawyer, launched a desperate move to procure another marriage certificate from the Ikoyi Registry, in collusion with some officials of the registry and those in the citizenship office under the Ministry of Interior in Abuja, to replace the forged one in the file and court record of Justice Balogun.
Daily Sun gathered that as at the close of work on Friday, December 27, Henrientta’s lawyer has been unable to file a reply to Jennifer’s motion challenging the allegation of the forged marriage certificate, for over three weeks, when the reply under the law was supposed to be within five days.
It was the knowledge of this latest subterranean move to thwart the course of justice that informed Jennifer’s latest petition. She is appealing to the concerned authorities to beam their searchlight on the activities of some fraudulent staff of the Ikoyi Registry, who are prepared to compromise their professional ethics at any price.
Already, the Police and the DSS are said to have started discrete investigation into the alleged criminal efforts by some officials of the lkoyi Marriage Registry to produce a brand new third marriage certificate to substitute the existing fake one in favour of Mrs Henrrietta.
Daily Sun gathered that the investigation is also focusing closely on Henrietta’s lawyer, Mr. Cyril Ogbekene, to ascertain his level of complicity in the alleged certificate racketeering. This is because according to Henrietta, in paragraph 1 of her affidavit on oath, she stated that her deposition to the affidavit was based on information she “gleaned from reading the document shown to her by her lawyer, Ogbekene, which she said she verily believed to be true.
According to Jennifer’s lawyer, late Ovuede, who was a staff of Chevron, died without a written Will. “And under the law of Administration of Estate law of Lagos state, the administration of the estate of the deceased is vested automatically in the Chief Judge of Lagos until a letter of administration is granted to any of the contending women.
“Until that is done, any dealing with the properties, entitlements, benefits or running of any of the businesses of the late Ovuede is a criminal offence. However, if Henrietta succeeds in her attempt to procure a third marriage certificate, she would be having perjury on her neck because she has sworn to an oath twice,” the lawyer stated.