Chukelu, a contributing analyst since 1996 to USAfricaonline.com (where this commentary is published, exclusively). He is an attorney and retired recently as an Adjunct Professor of Law.
The Igbos constitute one of the three major ethnic groups of an area that was amalgamated in 1914 by the British colonialists into what is geographically and politically referred to as Nigeria.
The Igbos are republican and patriarchal. This piece focuses on their succession, inheritance, tradition, practices and customary laws.
The first female offspring is known as the “Ada” while the first male person is identified as the “Opara”, “Okpala”, “Okpara” or a similar sounding variation.
Since global practice is that the woman marries and takes the husband’s name, the Okpara enjoys premium status because he stays and carries forth the family name, which is why a male Igbo child is sometimes named “Afamefuna” (my name will not end or vanish).
In practice of fairness to offspring, females are given life settlements by their parents at the point they are betrothed. At Igbo weddings, depending on the financial muscle of the bride’s family, the newlyweds are gifted cars, houses, refrigerators, furniture, cooking utensils etc. The practice is to provide their daughter with her family inheritance ‘inter vivos’ (while father is alive). Hence, she must not look back like Lot’s wife (who turned into salt when she looked back). Some communities banned this public display by brides’ families and demanded it be made private to enable less wealthy prospective brides have a chance at marriage.
The Igbo male children do not traditionally get comparable inheritance settlement at marriage. They must endure until their father passes on and the wealth (in many of the Igbo communities) solely passes to the Okpara, who is charged to cater for the other male siblings and his unmarried sisters. Unfortunately, greed sometimes truncates this traditional mandate and entrustment.
With the foregoing general background of the Igbo culture (which varies by community), female children generally are excluded in Ibo family inheritance, which is governed by Tradition and Customary Laws of the area.
In a landmark case involving an Ibo man from Imo State (present day Abia State), a daughter —-Gladys Ada Ukeje sued her mother and brother, who were the administrators of her deceased father’s estate for their father’s property located in Lagos State (a non-Igbo speaking State in Nigeria). The trial court upheld her right to inherit from her Igbo father’s estate, as a (married) daughter. Her mother and brother appealed. The Court of Appeal upheld her victory. The matter came before the Nigerian Supreme Court panel of five (5) justices: Justices Walter Onnoghen, Clara Ogunbiyi, Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs, Inyang Okoro, and lead Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour.
From the names, these Supreme Court Justices are from non-Ibo origins in Nigeria. The Supreme and final judgment rendered was that the Igbo Tradition and Customary Inheritance Laws discriminate against the female child and violate Section 42(1)(a) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that prohibits gender discrimination. Therefore, the Igbo Customary Laws on Inheritance are null and void and unenforceable. Ukeje v. Ukeje (2014) SC. 224/2004 LPELR-22724.
Despite the Supreme’s ruling, this pronounced discriminatory practice persists ( even in other countries in the Middle East and Asia—-not just in Africa). Interestingly, the lead Justice is of Yoruba (one of the three major groups in Nigeria) background, whose Inheritance tradition and custom mandates equitable inheritance distribution to all children, regardless of gender.
The poignant inquiry is whether the law, as enunciated by the Nigerian Supreme Court, creates an unintended consequence of disenfranchising the Igbo male child since female married siblings get two dips at the okra soup in comparison to the male child that has to wait for even one dip (with less meat) when the old man kicks the bucket.
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