I write about disinheriting daughters in parts of Igbo land, a culture that privileges men and Igbo fathers not writing their wills in toy column today: "In 1981, when Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje died, his daughter Gladys, was supposed to inherit nothing from him.
Not because the father thought she’d squander whatever inheritance she got. Not because she didn’t want any part of it. The reason was because she was his daughter and not his son.
Like many men of his generation, Lazarus Ukeje had no will, but it was taken for granted that the Igbo customary law of succession excluding female children from eligibility to inherit their fathers’ property would prevail.
Gladys took her stepmother and her half-brother to court to fight the disinheritance. It went all the way to the supreme court (because stepmother and stepmother’s son didn’t like the decision of the lower courts). Gladys won.
On April 14, 2014, the supreme court upheld the decisions of the lower courts. So why haven't things changed??? Because "tradition."
Sometime in the early 2000s, I went for a wedding in Enugu. The pastor in his homily pleaded with the groom to be patient with his new bride because “She’ll try you. She’ll live up to her nature, after all the word for woman, nwanyi, comes from nwa nyili mmadu.”
According to the pastor, at the beginning of time, before things were named (in Igbo land) the girl child was so difficult to train, was so obstinate, that she was simply named for that singular trait of hers.
I don’t know which I found worse: the sexism on brash display or the fact that many people laughed, including women, applauding the pastor’s ‘sense of humor.’
His advice to the bride was to be a good wife, to make the husband’s job of looking after her an easy one: have his meals ready on time. Keep a tidy home. Do not nag. Do not be a pain. Do not gossip.
This pastor and Gladys Ukeje’s family are not atypical. Igbo culture privileges men. There is an Igbo proverb that says that a home with only women and children is an empty one.
This is the reason why so many men I know of my father’s generation went to great lengths to sire sons to keep their homes from being “empty,” sometimes at the risk of shattering the families they already had.
No sacrifice was too great to be made to ensure the almighty baby boy to whom all inheritance would be left. Even men who had nothing to leave behind but their surnames and debts wanted to have “sons to be my heirs.” Biko, what are they inheriting but your wahala?
Unfortunately, it’s not just men of my father’s generation who disinherit(ed) their daughters. Despite the 2014 landmark case , young women today in parts of Igbo land are still prevented from inheriting their fathers’ estates
and many of these women are unwilling to sue for their share for several reasons. Igbo fathers should be encouraged to write wills. Writing your will isn’t you inviting death to come now now now.
It’s you ensuring that your daughters do not needlessly suffer when the resources to help them are there but are just being hoarded by some selfish git. The tradition of leaving everything to your sons is not only cruel, it is obsolete. What’s more, it’s illegal.

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More from @chikaunigwe

8 Feb
from: escr-net.org/caselaw/2018/o…
"Onyibor Anekwe & Anor v. Mrs. Maria Nweke, Supreme Court of Nigeria, SC. 129/2013.
Gender Equality in Inheritance Rights affirmed by Nigerian Supreme Court
This case challenges the customary law of male primogeniture of the Awka people in Nigeria.
The Supreme Court of Nigeria found that any custom that denies women, particularly widows, their inheritance, is repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience and is condemned by the Supreme Court.
Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Maria Nweke was asked to vacate her house by her late husband’s father on the ground that she had no male child in the house. erty goes to the deceased’s father and eldest brother.
Read 11 tweets
31 Jan
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So if Sis had been married, she would not have been punished. And if the man who got her pregnant had been a police officer one is to assume he wouldn’t have lost his job. It wouldn’t have mattered then whether he was married or not.
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17 Sep 20
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2 Jun 20
A Manual for White Allies /Potential Allies of Black People in America
1.Understand that allyship is intentional. You are not an ally because your partner is black, your best friend is black, your dog is black;
you like Mexican food,you watch foreign movies,you've been to South Africa;you adopted a black kid,you're a liberal, your kid's best friend is black. You're an ally because you've chosen to take a side against injustice,& you make that choice every single day,in deed and in words
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21 Jul 19
I’ll never forget Buchi Emecheta schooling us ( a bunch of googly- eyed Caine Prize shortlisted writers) in 2004 (?) about rethinking writing as hobby vs career
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10 Jul 19
So my beloved father-in-love died 2 months ago. He suspected he wouldn't see the end of this year (but not how close death was ) and wanted to say goodbye to the world the way he always wanted to.
Being Catholic, he had his final rites (wanted to do it while he was conscious) and had a champagne reception afterwards with the gourmet version of all his favorite foods catered by a chic restaurant and lots of champagne
He had all but one of his 3 children , all but 4 grandkids (we followed via Skype) and there was laughter (a lot of it) . Obviously, there were tears too.He chose the reading for his funeral,
Read 10 tweets

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