AN ANALYSIS OF THE LEGAL REGIME FOR CHANGE OF NAMES BY MARRIED WOMEN IN NIGERIA AND ITS POSITION IN ISLAMIC LAW

Changing the surnames of married women is one of the issues affecting married women in these modern days. Some people change their surname out of love at will, based on religion, while some are compelled to change their names due to governmental policies. Change of surname by women due to marriage, divorce, death, or quarrels with husbands is one issue giving rise to complaints of breach of fundamental rights of women in Nigeria and even the world over. It has become a common practice in Nigeria that once a woman marries, her surname changes to that of her husband. And the moment she is divorced or the husband dies, the need for another change arises. So, a woman mostly doesn’t stand the chance of maintaining a single name/identity. It has become a norm, to the extent that government agencies like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), among others, compel married women to change their surnames to that of their husbands. This has become a problem for the identity of women's lineage. This paper looks at the practices and policies to determine whether they conflict with the fundamental rights of women in Islamic law. The study adopts a purely doctrinal research method. The paper critically examined the policies of compulsory change of women’s surnames as required by some governmental organizations and found that they violated women's rights. The study recommends that other similar agencies like NYSC with such policies should stop and or reverse them for they are a direct affront to the Constitutional rights to freedom from discrimination and that of thought, conscience and religion.