Pity

Nigerian Billionaire's Ex Wife To
Pay His Lawyer's £100k Fees.
Why do things like this happen?
Scorned: Mercy Ogbedo, 45, outside London's High
Court, who has been told to pay her billionaire ex-
husband's £100,000 legal costs even though he
was already married when they wed.
Dailymail reports that a woman who claims she
was duped into a wedding with a billionaire who
was already married has been ordered to pay him
£100,000, a court heard
Mercy Ogbedo believed she married shipping
magnate Moses Taiga in an elaborate ceremony in
Nigeria where her feet were washed by village
elders and a dowry was paid for her as a ‘bride
price’.
The couple had twins together, but Mrs Ogbedo
then spent a decade pursuing the tycoon for
financial support through the British courts – only
to be told she would not get a penny because their
wedding ceremony was invalid.
Instead, the 45-year-old of Finchley, North London,
was ordered to pay 80 per cent of Mr Taiga’s legal
costs for a series of complex court hearings,
leaving her with an estimated £100,000 bill for
lawyers’ fees.
Mrs Ogbedo went to the Court of Appeal yesterday
in a bid to get the order overturned. The court
heard she had ‘limited means’ while her ‘husband’
owned a string of London properties.
The pair ‘married’ in 2002 and had twins, but Mrs
Ogbedo discovered soon afterwards that Mr Taiga
had already married a woman in Benin, West
Africa.
The court heard that having more than one wife is
allowed under Nigerian law, but Mrs Ogbedo
applied to the British courts in 2003 to have her
marriage dissolved because of her husband’s
behaviour, and to force Mr Taiga to pay
maintenance for their children.
The High Court ordered she should be given
£300,000 a year – but Mr Taiga went to the
Nigerian courts and successfully argued that their
wedding was invalid, because of his church
marriage in Benin.
The court ruled that Mrs Ogbedo’s was a ‘non-
marriage’, which meant precisely nothing in the
eyes of the law.
The High Court then ruled it could not hand over
any of Mr Taiga’s fortune because he was never
legally married to Mrs Ogbedo, and that she should
pay most of his legal costs. Her lawyers branded
that decision ‘incomprehensible’ and said she
should be entitled to a payout.
Barrister Timothy Scott QC, for Mrs Ogbedo, said:
‘The wife says she was duped. She should be
permitted to apply for financial relief in England by
virtue of that marriage ceremony.’
Since his split from Mrs Ogbedo, Mr Taiga has
ended his 1974 Benin marriage and wed another
woman, Yinka, with whom he has quadruplets.
Ruling on Mrs Ogbedo’s case, Appeal Court judge
Lord Justice McFarlane said he had ‘real
sympathy’ for her position, adding: ‘All the time
the wife considered that she was married to her
husband he was in fact married to another lady.’
However, he said he could not allow her to appeal
over a divorce payout because ‘there was no
marriage on which English law could bite’.
He said he would allow her to appeal against the
order that she should pay Mr Taiga’s costs.
Lord Justice McFarlane said it was arguable that
the sum was unfair, adding: ‘She has the sole care
of the parties’ children and is a lady of limited
means.’
*Please I need a lawyer in the house to educate
me more on this Law regarding Nigerian men being
eligible to more than one wife.I thought it was a
religion thing.Please what section of the Nigerian
Law