Court restores inheritance rights of females

Court restores inheritance rights of females

The Nigerian Supreme Court has reportedly handed down a revolutionary ruling in respect of a long-standing suit on the inheritance rights of female children in Igboland.

According to a post on the blog of The Child Rights Awareness and Creation Organisation, CRACO, the court ’voided the existing traditional law and custom, which forbid a female from inheriting her late father’s estate, on the grounds that it is discriminatory and conflicts with the provision of the constitution.

The court held that the practice conflicted with section 42(1)(a) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution. The judgment was on the appeal marked: SC.224/2004 filed by Mrs. Lois Chituru Ukeje  (wife of the late Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje) and their son, Enyinnaya Lazarus Ukeje against Mrs. Cladys Ada Ukeje (the deceased’s daughter).

Cladys had sued the deceased’s wife and son before the Lagos High Court, claiming to be one of the deceased’s children and sought to be included among those to administer their deceased’s father’s estate.

The trial court found that he was a daughter to the deceased and that she was qualified to benefit from the estate of their father who died intestate in Lagos in1981.

The Court of Appeal, Lagos to which Mrs. Lois Ukeje and Enyinnaya Ukeje appealed, upheld the decision of the trail court, prompting them to appeal to the Supreme Court.’

In its judgment, the Nigerian apex court concluded that the earlier ruling of the Court of Appeal, Lagos which voided the Igbo native law and custom that disinherits female children was right and proper.

Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, who read the lead judgment, in her ruling asserted that “no matter the circumstances of the birth of a female child, such a child is entitled to an inheritance from her later father’s estate.

“Consequently, the Igbo customary law, which disentitles a female child from partaking in the sharing of her deceased father’s estate is breach of Section 42(1) and (2) of the Constitution, a fundamental rights provision guaranteed to every Nigerian.

“The said discriminatory customary law is void as it conflicts with Section 42(1) and (2) of the Constitution. In the light of all that I have been saying, the appeal is dismissed. In the spirit of reconciliation, parties to bear their own costs,” the learned judge affirmed.

All of the other justices - Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, Claral Bata Ogunbiyi, Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs and  John Inyang Okoro -on the panel endorsed the lead judgment.

Says Uche Akolisa, a brands analyst at Hallmark newspapers on the development: ‘Bravo! It is huge step that will help in the economic empowerment of the girl-child. It will also help alleviate the problem of the disinheritance of widows. However, it will take a lot of social orientation and mobilization for it to be accepted at the grassroots.’