By Dave Ajetomobi
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The respondents denied her claim and relied on the custom which prevented a widow without a male child from inheriting her late husband’s property. Upon conclusion of hearing, the trial court granted the widow’s claims and dismissed the appellants’ counter-claim. The appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal which dismissed their appeal.
On a further appeal to the Supreme Court, the court also dismissed the appeal and held that the custom of the people to the effect that a married woman without a male issue cannot inherit landed property of her late husband is barbaric, unconstitutional and repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience and ought to be abolished. In the course of the judgment, Ogunbiyi, JSC who delivered the leading judgment,had this important statement to make: “I hasten to add at the point that the custom and practices of Awka people upon which the appellants have relied for their counter claim is hereby out rightly condemned in very strong terms.”
In other words, a custom of this nature in the 21st century societal setting will only tend to depict the absence of the realities of human civilization. It is punitive, uncivilized and only intended to protect the selfish perpetration of male dominance which is aimed at suppressing the right of the women folk in the given society.
One would expect that the days of such obvious differential discrimination are over. Any culture that disinherits a daughter from her father’s estate or wife from her husband’s property by reason of God instituted gender differential should be punitively and decisively dealt with. The punishment should serve as a deterrent measure and ought to be meted out against the perpetrators of the culture and custom. For a widow of a man to be thrown out of her matrimonial home, where she had lived all her life with her late husband and children, by her late husband’s brothers on the ground that she had no male child, is indeed very barbaric, worrying and flesh-skinning”.
In his concurring judgment, his Lordship,Mohammed, JSC said: “natural justice, equity and good conscience. That practice must fade out and allow equity, equality, justice and fair play to reign in the society.
These decisions of the Nigerian courts in recent time is a very welcome development. They not only condemn and invalidate the discriminatory customary laws debarring women from inheriting landed property, they have emancipated women in Igbo land and delivered them eternally from the shackles of those outrageous and patently discriminatory customs. Women can now inherit, either as daughters, from their father’s estate, or as widows from their husband’s estate without fear of molestation or deprivation. Those dark ays when women were denied the right of inheritance and succession are gone for good. The superior courts of record have by their recent decisions reviewed in this paper, not only mitigated the injustice of the customary law with regard to women’s inheritance right, but have also abolished the said customary law”.
Conclusion
It can be said generally that every part of the country Nigeria has its own peculiar native laws and customs but our court over the years have been able to sieve through them in order to protect fundamental rights of citizens by striking down any native law and custom on inheritance that failed the test of repugnancy doctrine.
CONCLUDED.
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Authored by Ben Ijeoma Adigwe Esq., ACIarb (UK), LL.M, Dip. in Artificial Intelligence, Director at the Delta State Ministry of Justice, Asaba, Nigeria.
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