You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
Succession right is one area of private and property law practice that is yet to be explored in Nigeria and very few Nigerians know it even exists in our jurisprudence. If we use it often, it will serve as a means of reducing the legion of institutionalized discriminatory cultural practices that are often meted out on Igbo female genders in Nigeria. However, as wide as the concept of intestacy, we will only be restricting this research to women’s succession rights particularly, the Igbo women. Some of these principles are quite discriminatory and are no longer in tangent with modernity. Thus, it is pertinent to pinpoint these practices to enable effective understanding of the mechanisms of these principles when examined against the milieu where they are operative. This research examines the discriminatory cultural practices and women’s rights among the Igbo of the south- east Nigeria. The work highlights or points out critical issues relating to the principles and rules of intestacy under the Nigerian customary law. In the course of this study, it is discovered that the various systems of intestacy under Nigerian customary law are in dire need of urgent reforms as these systems have become obsolete and are no longer in tangent with the changing society. There are some general rules which are of dominant applicability amongst the various tribes. Igbo customary law by implication denies the female genders the right to inherit their deceased husbands’ or fathers’ landed property, thus their inheritance rights are grossly marginalized and jeopardized. Land and landed properties devolve under this system on the males, to the exclusion of daughters and wives. The Constitution has to a large extent assuaged the successional disabilities that exist under customary law by prohibiting discrimination. It has been pointed out that it is the judiciary that has been the major agent of development of customary law of intestacy and the driving force for upholding these sacrosanct provisions of the Constitution. This study suggests the following recommendations; Amendment of Section 3(1) Wills Law, Unification of Family Law, Legal Literacy Programmes, among others.
