The highlight of the week is the story of Yul Edochie, the renowned Nollywood actor who announced on his social media pages yesterday that he has married a second wife.

I will try to analyse this situation by the position of the law as to whether the act of Yul Edochie marrying a second wife while his first marriage is still subsisting is an offence known to the Nigerian law or not.

Since I cannot authoritatively verify nor state if Yul Edochie married his first wife, Mrs. May Edochie under the act or not, I will just make a wild assumption that he didn’t because if he did and he went on to marry a second wife he has committed a crime known in law as bigamy which is punishable in Nigeria with 5-7 years imprisonment.

Bigamy simply means the offence of marrying someone else while already married to another person and it is a criminal offence in Nigeria.

If you are legally and validly married to a person under the Marriage Act in Nigeria, you are not permitted to marry someone else while your previous marriage is subsisting and your wife or husband is still alive, if you do you have committed a crime and you can go to jail for it.

A marriage conducted under the act is a marriage that is conducted in a marriage registry or any recognized place of worship and a marriage certificate was issued to the newly wedded couples certifying that they have been legally joined together in accordance with the marriage act.

While such marriage is still subsisting, you are not to marry another person and you cannot validly marry another person if you do you have committed a crime known as bigamy.

The best legal advice in this matter for intending couples who wish to marry numerous wives/ husbands or marry another wife after the first marriage is “don’t get married under the act”, you can choose to go with traditional marriages or church marriage insofar as the church does not issue valid marriage certificates.

Back to the Yul Edochie’s issue, if Yul Edochie did get married under the act and went ahead to take a second wife as he purports then Yul has committed an offence known as bigamy punishable with 5-7 years jail term.

Stanley Alieke, Esq. is a Nigerian quintessential lawyer, public interest advocate and a media personality. He constantly writes on law/politics relating topics and makes constant appearances on TV and on radio talking about law related topics and advocating for the interest of the masses.