Thread by @chikaunigwe

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.

Read in full here: dailytrust.com/on-disinheriti…