Why Most Igbo Women Can’t Inherit Fathers’ Property – Gender Activists

Gender activists have claimed that ninety percent of Igbo women are not aware that they have equal rights of inheritance with their male counterparts to their late fathers’ estate.

Recall that the Supreme Court, in 2015, voided the Igbo law and custom, which hitherto forbade Igbo women from inheriting estate of their late fathers. Ken Ike, a lawyer, said, “The Supreme Court of Nigeria has invalidated the Igbo customary law that discriminates against female children’s right of inheritance to their late fathers’ property. The court consistently held that the Igbo customary law, aside being contrary to natural justice, equity and good conscience, violates sections 42 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as altered).”

Despite this verdict, however, an average Igbo woman does not anticipate inheriting any estate of her parents, based on the age-long customs that make male children statutorily entitled to such.

Mrs Juliana Ngwu, from Nkanu, Enugu State, said, “I don’t think if such is practicable in my area. I don’t know how to approach my brothers to demand such rights. They will ask me to go back to my husband’s house.”

Some Igbo men, however, advocate the implementation of the inheritance rights of women to ensure equity and justice. Hon Osmond Onuh, a mass communicator and political scientist, from Enugu Ezike, Igboeze North Local Government Area of Enugu State, said, “Gender disparity, if properly handled in Igbo land, will go a long way in addressing a lot of social ills in our society. Overtime, women are seen as people that can be seen but not heard. They don’t have access to inheritance in my place. I don’t cherish such practice as a son. I believe we are born equal. The women being discriminated upon take care of their parents more than their male counterparts. I am a son, and will surely allow my sisters to have equal share of our late father’s property. I remember when we did the burial of our parents, we contributed equally towards the project. When our mother was sick, she was strictly cared for by our sisters. The males were not even at home. When we didn’t have money, it was one of my sisters that provided the funds, and even kept her in her matrimonial home.”

Ogechi Ike, the executive director for the Citizens’ Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights, based in Owerri, Imo State, called for the domestication of women’s inheritance law by all the states in the southeast to reduce the marginalisation being meted to women.

She told our correspondent that, “Less than 30% of Igbo women are aware of this right. There are matrilineal societies in Igboland, like Afikpo and Ohaofia, where women have full capacities to own lands and inherit property. But in other Igbo societies, such as Anambra, Imo and Enugu states, it is predominantly patriarchal in nature. It has not been fair in as much as the Supreme Court voided the Igbo law and custom that forbid women from inheriting their late fathers’ estate or husbands’ property.”

Ike, a gender-rights advocate, called on civil society organizations and various stakeholders to sensitise women and parents on the Supreme Court ruling. In her words, “We do more strategic advocacy, involving women to understand that it is their rights, and the need to make noise about it. We try to push for it to be passed into law in Imo State because it has been signed into law by the Jonathan administration in 2015, and up to 12 states have adopted it. The law also gives room for the eradication of widowhood and traditional practices detrimental to women. We move the advocacy to a higher level. Ebonyi and Enugu, I believe, have adopted it. We want all state Houses of Assembly in Igboland to domesticate the law for equity.”