A REFLECTION ON NATIONALITY AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DOMICILE UNDER 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 the British. Through this 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. Although the concept has been adopted in Nigeria, it is alien to the Nigerian legal system with its diverse ethnicity and culture and its complex rules which makes the concept too difficult to work effectively in the face of indigenous personal systems of law. Through the doctrinal research method, this article has found that given the problems posed by the reception and adoption of the concept vis-a-vis other personal connecting factors operating in Nigeria, whether the concept can be replaced with the alternative of Nationality. It is also found that the concept as applied in Nigeria has promoted ethnicity and has caused untold discrimination and undesirable results in contradistinction to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) which provides for citizenship by birth. A way forward is that Nationality compared with domicile enjoys the advantages that it is relatively easy to understand as a concept and normally easily ascertainable. Also, the seeming lapses created by the Constitution of Nigeria in promoting state of origin and indigenship over citizenship will be eliminated.