CONTEMPORARY JUDICIAL RESPONSE TO WOMEN’S SUCCESSION AND INHERITANCE RIGHTS IN NIGERIA: A HEAVE TO GENDER DISCRIMINATION

Abstract

Women in Nigeria have continuously experienced discriminatory treatment in real life particularly due to the male dominant nature rooted in patriarchal ideology. One of the numerous areas where women have been treated unfairly is that of inheritance. Under many Nigerian Customary Law Systems, women cannot inherit their husbands’ estate and in some cases their parents. However, their male counterparts can inherit as husbands and children. There is a notion that wives are their husband’s immovable property to be inherited; most customs therefore based the right to inheritance on blood relation. Indeed, inheritance is one of the commonest ways for women to acquire or access land which the anchor of all that is valuable. Disinheritance seriously undermines women’s economic security and feminized poverty. Using a doctrinal research methodology, the paper examined some discriminatory cultural practices under customary laws with particular reference to succession and inheritance. It equally apprised recent judicial decisions on women inheritance. The paper found out that Nigerian courts have a great role to play in the re-engineering of laws relating to women’s inheritance rights under customary law; equally as a result of ignorance, illiteracy, poor access to legal justice system, women have not been able to exploit the full potentials of the law to their own advantage. The paper therefore recommended that women should be enlightened on the need to bring to fore cases of disinheritance and discrimination against women under the guise of custom. It further recommended that restatement of customary law through codification, unification and harmonization of the native laws and customs of the various ethnic groups would go a long way in bringing about uniformity, certainty and predictability of customary law thereby improving its status from being an instrument of male chauvinism to that of a civilized law that respects gender equality and the rule of law.