FEMALE GENDER AND INHERITANCE RIGHTS
Women, like men, have right to inherit property
The customs in some cultures relating to the status of women and inheritance rights are repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. These customs ought to be jettisoned and that is the import of many court pronouncements on the issue. Critical stakeholders in Nigeria must come to terms with the fact that our women and girls deserve a better deal. They have proved wrong the erroneous notion imposed by patriarchy that women are inferior to men while gender equality is not just a human rights issue, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development and a peaceful, prosperous society.
In signing the bill into law, the ‘Rivers State Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022’ recently, Governor Nyesom Wike said he couldn’t comprehend why it is considered a taboo in many parts of the state for female children to share in their family inheritance. “Because you’re a girl, you’re a woman, you’re not entitled to inherit what belongs to your father. It is not you who decides having a girl or a boy. It is God. So, put yourself in their shoes today where, by God’s mercy you have three children, all girls and you struggle in life to see what you can keep for them,” said Wike. “Tomorrow, one of their uncles comes, and says, ‘my friend, girls don’t inherit their father’s property’. With all your efforts in life, somebody comes to discriminate against them, why?”
Unfortunately, this matter was settled by the Supreme Court in 2014. The judgment of the apex court resulted from a suit filed by Ms. Gladys Ada Ukeje at the Lagos High Court claiming that being a daughter she was equally entitled to administer and inherit the property of her late father. The Lagos High Court had given judgment in her favour, prompting appeals to the Court of Appeal and eventually the Supreme Court, both of which ruled in her favour.
In affirming the High Court and Court of Appeal judgments, the Supreme Court held that the Customary Law which barred a female child, irrespective of the circumstances of her birth, from inheriting or partaking in the sharing of the property and estate of her father, was a violation of her right to freedom from discrimination enshrined in section 42 (1) (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, who read the lead judgment on the appeal filed in 2004 by Mrs. Lois Chituru Ukeje (wife of the late Mr. Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje) and their son, Mr. Enyinnaya Lazarus Ukeje, held that the Appeal Court was right to have voided the aspect of Igbo native law and custom that denies female children such inheritance. All the other Justices concurred with him.
Disempowering women who constitute about 50 per cent of the Nigerian population is counterproductive to the development of our society. The impediments to the enforcement of the right of women to inheritance that abound in different states of the federation should be removed to pave way for their efficacious and effectual enforcement. Governments at all levels, NGOs and members of the civil society should rally to the assistance of oppressed women and widows who lack access to justice. Traditional rulers, especially in many of the southern states should carry out effective mass enlightenment in their respective localities on the importance of upholding women’s inheritance rights.
According to the Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Ms. Gladys Ada Ukeje, “any culture that dis-inherits a daughter from her father’s estate or wife from her husband’s property by reason of God-instituted gender differential should be punitively dealt with.”
It is a declaration to which we concur.
