Following the latest Supreme Court ruling, the Igbo custom
which ‘forbids’ daughters or female child from inheriting their father’s
properties have been nullified, reports ITRealms.
This, ITRealms gathered
steams from the grounds that it is discriminatory and conflicts with the
provision of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to the Supreme Court landmark judgement, the court
held that the practice conflicted with section 42(1) (a) and (2) of the 1999
Constitution.
The judgment, ITRealms
gathered, was on the appeal marked: SC.224/2004 filed by Mrs. Lois Chituru
Ukeje (wife of the late Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje) and son, Enyinnaya Lazarus Ukeje
against Mrs. Gladys Ada Ukeje (the deceased’s daughter).
Gladys 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 last Friday, July 14, 2017, the Supreme
Court held that the Court of Appeal, Lagos was right to have voided the Igbo’s
native law and custom that disinherit female children.
Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, who read the lead judgment, held
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.
As said by the Judge, “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.”
Equally, Justices Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, Claral Bata
Ogunbiyi, Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs and John
Inyang Okoro, who were part of the panel that heard the appeal, were reportedly
in agrement with the lead judgment.
Uboshe Uboshe/GEE
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Pix: CJN Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen
