SOME THOUGHTS ON HABITUAL RESIDENCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE CONCEPT OF DOMICILE UNDER THE NIGERIAN LAW

Abstract

The doctrine of domicile is a foreign concept which has been received and adopted in Nigeria by reason of her political nexus with her colonizers, the British. Through the doctrine, an individual or a propositus was connected to some legal systems for particular legal purposes. Domicile is used in Nigeria as a connecting factor in a large number of questions that need to be determined by the personal law of the individual. The concept as received and adopted in Nigeria, is fraught with difficulty in its application due to unrealistic and artificial rules leading to uncertainty of outcome. Through the doctrinal research method, this article has found that domicile of origin has the potential of reasserting itself as the person’s actual domicile. It also found that, domicile of origin referred to as the revival doctrine has the characteristic of connecting a person to a legal system which may be far and remote from the circumstances of his life. A way forward is to share some thoughts on Habitual Residence as an alternative to the concept of Domicile since habitual residence is without the various legal artificialities of domicile such as the doctrine of revival. Also, habitual residence has been used as a connecting factor for jurisdiction with regard to divorce, separation, and nullity of marriage, the recognition of foreign divorces, the formal validity of wills, international adoptions and child abduction as a compromise between the common law concept of domicile and the civil law notion of nationality.