BY LYDIA EHISUORIA OHONSI ESQ.
ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court of Nigeria’s landmark decision in Ukeje v. Ukeje (2014) constitutes one of the most transformative judicial pronouncements in the history of Nigerian inheritance law. By declaring unconstitutional any customary law rule that disinherits a daughter from her late father’s estate solely on account of her gender, the Supreme Court gave concrete juridical expression to the constitutional guarantee against discrimination. This paper undertakes a systematic analysis of the decision, its antecedents, its ratio and obiter, its implications for the Nigerian girl-child’s inheritance rights, and the residual challenges that remain in translating the judgment’s aspirations into lived social reality. The paper concludes that while Ukeje is a watershed, legislative reform and sustained social re-orientation are indispensable complements to judicial activism if the girl child is to enjoy substantive equality in matters of succession.
INTRODUCTION
In many Nigerian communities, particularly among the Igbo of South-Eastern Nigeria, customary law has historically operated as an instrument of systematic exclusion of female children from inheritance. The rule — rooted in patrilineal and patriarchal tradition — dictates that only male children succeed to the estate of an intestate deceased father. A daughter, however diligent, however accomplished, was reduced to an outsider in her father’s compound upon his death. She could neither inherit land nor personal property under the customary regime, her entitlement being contingent solely on the accident of gender.
It is against this backdrop that the Supreme Court’s decision in Ukeje v. Ukeje[1] assumes its monumental significance. The court held, per Rhodes-Vivour JSC, that any such customary rule is void by virtue of section 42(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)[2] — a provision that forbids subjecting any Nigerian citizen to a disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of birth. The decision did not create a new right; it gave constitutional teeth to a right long denied.
This analysis proceeds in six parts: the factual and procedural background of the case; the legal framework governing inheritance in Nigeria; pre-Ukeje judicial antecedents on gender and customary inheritance; the Supreme Court’s ratio and its jurisprudential contributions; the post-decision realities for the girl child; and recommendations for law reform.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
2.1 The Parties and the Deceased
The deceased, Lazarus Ogbonnaya Ukeje, was an Igbo man domiciled and resident in Lagos State before his death. He died intestate, leaving behind both a wife and children. The 1st respondent, Lois Chituru Ukeje, was his surviving spouse, while the 2nd respondent, Gladys Ada Ukeje, was his daughter and one of his biological children. The appellants were the male children of the deceased, who resisted the inclusion of Gladys in the administration of their father’s estate, relying on Igbo customary law to the effect that a female child cannot inherit or participate in the administration of a deceased father’s estate.
2.2 The Statutory Context
Section 49(5) of the Administration of Estates Law of Lagos State[3] provided a statutory hook for the customary exclusion by directing the application of customary law in the distribution of the estate of a deceased Igbo man. The appellants relied on this provision together with the Igbo customary law rule[4] to contend that Gladys, being a female child, had no entitlement whatsoever in the intestate estate of her father.Law Enforcement Gear
2.3 Proceedings Before the High Court and Court of Appeal
The Lagos State High Court found in favour of the respondents, granting Gladys a right to share in the estate. The appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, which also dismissed the appeal.[5] Dissatisfied, the appellants further appealed to the Supreme Court, and it is from that apex court’s pronouncement that the law of gender-equal inheritance in Nigeria has been irrevocably altered.
THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK GOVERNING INHERITANCE IN NIGERIA
Nigerian inheritance law is a composite of at least three normative systems: statutory (federal and state), received English law, and customary law. In the context of intestate succession, the applicable law largely depends on the personal law of the deceased, determined by domicile and ethnic affiliation. For Nigerians not governed by the Wills Act tradition, customary law fills the vacuum. This pluralism creates a landscape in which outcomes in inheritance disputes often depend on which normative system courts apply — a plasticity that has historically disadvantaged women and female children.
The constitutional framework, however, has always provided a ceiling. Section 42(2) of the 1999 Constitution, reproduced verbatim from its 1979 predecessor, prohibits discrimination based on the circumstances of birth.[6] The repugnancy doctrine — inherited from the colonial era and preserved in statutes[7] — provides courts with an additional tool to strike down customary law rules that offend natural justice, equity, and good conscience.[8] It was the convergence of these two mechanisms — constitutional supremacy and repugnancy — that the Supreme Court weaponised in Ukeje.
PRE-UKEJE JUDICIAL ANTECEDENTS
4.1 Early Decisions and the Repugnancy Test
The repugnancy test has colonial origins, traceable to Cole v. Cole (1898) and the subsequent body of case law developed under the native courts legislation. Early cases involving women’s succession rights largely ended adversely for female claimants, courts exhibiting a marked deference to customary norms without critically examining their compatibility with evolving conceptions of justice. In Nezianya v. Okagbue[9] the Supreme Court upheld Igbo customary law on the limited property rights of widows, reflecting the era’s judicial conservatism.
4.2 Mojekwu v. Mojekwu — The Turning Tide
A critical inflection point came in 1997 with the Court of Appeal decision in Mojekwu v. Mojekwu.[10] In a courageous judgment, Niki Tobi JCA (as he then was) held that the ‘Oli-ekpe’ custom of Nnewi — which vested a deceased man’s property in a male relative to the exclusion of his widow — was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. The Court articulated the landmark proposition that ‘a custom which deprives a widow of inheritance is repugnant to natural justice.’ [11]This decision, though confined to widows’ rights and not directly addressing daughters, laid indispensable groundwork for the jurisprudential edifice that Ukeje would later complete.
4.3 Anekwe v. Nweke — Confirming the Trajectory
In Anekwe v. Nweke[12] decided in the same year as Ukeje, the Supreme Court invalidated the Awka customary law rule that prevented a widow from inheriting her husband’s property. The court declared such a custom repugnant, consolidating the judicial momentum toward gender justice in succession law. The juxtaposition of Anekwe and Ukeje — both from 2014 — signals that Nigeria’s apex court had made a deliberate jurisprudential turn toward equality-based interpretation of customary inheritance norms.
THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN UKEJE v. UKEJE
5.1 The Ratio Decidendi
The lead judgment of Rhodes-Vivour JSC formulated the core holding in unequivocal terms: any customary law rule that operates to deprive a female child of her right to inherit from her father’s estate on account only of her gender is inconsistent with section 42(2) of the Constitution and is therefore void to the extent of that inconsistency.[13] The court identified the operative mechanism of exclusion as the ‘circumstances of birth’ — being born female — and held squarely that the Constitution forbids the imposition of any disability on that basis.
The court also addressed the interplay between section 49(5) of the Administration of Estates Law of Lagos State and the Constitution. Invoking the doctrine of constitutional supremacy enshrined in section 1(1) and (3) of the Constitution[14] and reinforced by authoritative precedent[15], the court held that to the extent that section 49(5) operationalised a discriminatory customary rule, it could not be saved from constitutional invalidity. Any statutory endorsement of an unconstitutional customary practice inherits the constitutional infirmity of that practice.
5.2 Constitutional Analysis
Section 42(2) of the 1999 Constitution is the cardinal provision invoked. It provides that ‘No citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his birth.’ The phrase ‘circumstances of birth’ encompasses the immutable characteristics with which a person enters the world — including sex/gender. The court’s interpretive approach was purposive: the provision must be construed so as to give full effect to the equality values it was designed to protect.
This reasoning aligns with Nigeria’s international obligations under CEDAW[16] and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, both of which prohibit discrimination on grounds of sex and mandate equal inheritance rights. The Supreme Court implicitly acknowledged that constitutional interpretation must be informed by treaty obligations, lending the decision a transnational normative grounding.
5.3 Significance of the Decision
Several dimensions of the decision deserve particular note. First, it confirmed that no customary law, regardless of its antiquity or community acceptance, can override the Constitution. Second, it extended the principle from widows (established in Mojekwu and Anekwe) to daughters — a class historically even more systematically excluded. Third, the decision enunciated a rule of general application, not confined to Igbo custom; any ethnic custom operating similarly is equally unconstitutional.
ANTECEDENT REALITIES OF THE GIRL CHILD ON INHERITANCE
6.1 The Cultural Architecture of Exclusion
To appreciate the revolutionary import of Ukeje, one must understand the cultural ecology it disrupted. The primogeniture-inflected and patrilineal customary norms of the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and many other Nigerian ethnic groups have long operated to channel property transmission exclusively through male lines. A daughter, upon marriage, was regarded as having transited permanently into her husband’s lineage; she could not simultaneously retain membership in, and claim inheritance from, her natal family. The result was a double exclusion: she gained no inheritance rights in her husband’s family (being an outsider by custom), nor could she claim against her father’s estate.
6.2 Socio-economic Consequences
The denial of inheritance rights to female children has cascading socioeconomic consequences. Land and property constitute the principal store of intergenerational wealth in Nigeria. By excluding daughters from succession to land, customary law perpetuated cycles of female poverty and economic dependence. Women denied a patrimonial foundation were structurally more vulnerable to domestic exploitation and less able to access credit, build businesses, or educate their own children — thus reproducing inequality across generations.[17]
6.3 Daughters Born Out of Wedlock
An additional layer of vulnerability attaches to daughters born out of wedlock. Such children faced compounded discrimination: not only gender-based exclusion, but also stigmatisation as ‘illegitimate’ under certain customary frameworks.[18] Gladys Ada Ukeje herself was alleged by the appellants to be a child born out of wedlock, prompting the court to address the question of proof of parentage. The court held that upon proof of biological parentage, no rule of law or custom could strip a child of inheritance rights on account of the marital status of the parents — an extension of the section 42(2) protection to the circumstances of parental union.
6.4 Pre-Decision Survivance Strategies
Before Ukeje, female children and their advocates developed various workarounds: testate succession (urging fathers to make wills in daughters’ favour), inter vivos gifts, and contractual arrangements. These strategies, while useful for those with access to legal advice and sympathetic fathers, left the majority of girls exposed. The persistent normative baseline was exclusion; inclusion required affirmative acts that most families did not undertake.[19]
POST-UKEJE REALITIES AND RESIDUAL CHALLENGES
7.1 Implementation Deficit
A persistent disjunction separates the law as declared by the Supreme Court from the law as applied in communities and lower courts across Nigeria. Many customary courts — particularly at the district and area court levels — continue to apply exclusionary customary rules, either from ignorance of the Supreme Court’s decision or from a conscious preference for community norms over constitutional mandates. This implementation deficit is a structural problem inherent in Nigeria’s decentralised judicial architecture and the limited reach of legal literacy programmes.[20]
7.2 Legislative Lacunae
Judicial decisions, however transformative, cannot substitute for comprehensive legislative reform. Lagos State amended its Administration of Estates Law following the Ukeje decision,[21] but many other states retain statutory provisions that either incorporate or accommodate discriminatory customary rules. At the federal level, no gender equality in inheritance statute has been enacted; the Gender Equal Opportunities Bill has languished in the National Assembly, a victim of cultural and political resistance.
7.3 Access to Justice Barriers
Even where the law is clear, its benefits accrue disproportionately to those with the means to enforce it. Litigation is costly; family pressure to abandon claims against siblings and male relatives is pervasive; and social stigma attaches to daughters who seek judicial redress. The practical effect is that the constitutional right declared in Ukeje remains a formal entitlement for many and a lived reality for few. Legal aid, paralegal outreach, and pro bono advocacy are essential infrastructure for converting declaratory rights into substantive ones.
7.4 The Role of Alternative Dispute Resolution
Most inheritance disputes in rural Nigeria are resolved not by courts but by family councils and community elders — bodies that frequently replicate rather than interrogate discriminatory norms. The incorporation of constitutional equality principles into community-based dispute resolution mechanisms is a frontier area requiring deliberate policy intervention. Training community mediators on the constitutional imperatives articulated in Ukeje could significantly extend the decision’s practical reach.[22]
JURISPRUDENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Viewed within the comparative African constitutional landscape, Ukeje takes its place alongside landmark decisions from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, and Tanzania that have similarly used constitutional equality provisions to invalidate customary inheritance norms that discriminate against women. The South African Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence on customary succession, the Botswana Court of Appeal’s decision in Unity Dow, and Tanzania’s apex court decisions on Haya customary law all reflect the same normative impulse: inherited custom must yield to constitutional equality when the two conflict.Nigerian Events Calendar
Within Nigeria, Ukeje represents the maturation of a jurisprudential arc that began with the repugnancy test in colonial courts and progressed through the Mojekwu decisions to reach its fullest expression. It validates the role of apex courts as constitutional guardians capable of reshaping social norms when the legislative branch is inert.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following reforms are recommended to translate the aspirations of Ukeje into reality. First, the National Assembly should urgently enact a federal Gender Equality in Inheritance Act that codifies the constitutional principle across all Nigerian jurisdictions and provides enforcement mechanisms. Second, all state governments should audit their Administration of Estates Laws and customary law statutes to expunge provisions that perpetuate gender-based exclusion. Third, the National Judicial Institute should incorporate Ukeje and related jurisprudence into training programmes for judges and magistrates at all levels, with emphasis on customary court judges who handle the bulk of inheritance disputes. Fourth, legal aid institutions, civil society organisations, and bar associations should mount sustained public education campaigns — in local languages and through community radio — to inform women and girls of their inheritance rights. Fifth, community dispute resolution mechanisms should be reformed to incorporate constitutional equality norms, with trained female mediators playing a central role. Sixth, academic institutions should integrate gender and inheritance law into law school curricula, producing a generation of lawyers attuned to the realities of female disinheritance and equipped to litigate effectively on behalf of affected clients.
CONCLUSION
Ukeje v. Ukeje is a decision of enduring constitutional and social importance. By voiding the application of customary law that denies a daughter inheritance rights on account of gender, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Nigerian Constitution does not speak with a forked tongue: equality under law means equality for daughters as much as for sons, for women as much as for men. The decision completed — at least at the level of constitutional principle — a long overdue correction of one of customary law’s most unjust artifacts.
Yet the trajectory from principle to practice is neither automatic nor assured. The antecedent realities that produced the customary exclusion of the girl child — patrilineal ideology, structural poverty, limited legal access, legislative inertia — do not dissolve with a judicial pronouncement. The work that remains is the harder, more diffuse work of social transformation: legislative reform, judicial education, community engagement, and the empowerment of women to assert rights that the Constitution and the Supreme Court have now unambiguously recognised as theirs.
The Nigerian girl child’s inheritance rights have a constitutional champion in Ukeje v. Ukeje. What she now needs are legislative architects, judicial custodians, and community advocates willing to do the sustained work of building a legal and social order in which that championship is felt in every family compound, every customary court, and every inheritance dispute across this country.
TABLE OF CASES
Anekwe v. Nweke (2014) 9 NWLR (Pt. 1412) 393 (SC)
Attorney-General of Ogun State v. Aberuagba (1985) 1 NWLR (Pt. 3) 395
Cole v. Cole (1898) 1 NLR 15
Dawodu v. Danmole (1958) 3 FSC 46
Edet v. Essien (1932) 11 NLR 47
In Re: Goods of Effiong (1964) NNLR 96
Marwa v. Nyako (2012) 6 NWLR (Pt. 1296) 199
Mojekwu v. Ejikeme (2000) 5 NWLR (Pt. 657) 402
Mojekwu v. Mojekwu (1997) 7 NWLR (Pt. 512) 283
Nezianya v. Okagbue (1963) 1 All NLR 352
Okonkwo v. Okagbue (1994) 9 NWLR (Pt. 368) 301
Onwuchekwa v. Onwuchekwa (1991) 5 NWLR (Pt. 194) 739
Peenok Investments Ltd v. Hotel Presidential Ltd (1982) 12 SC 1
Uke v. Iro (2001) 11 NWLR (Pt. 723) 196
Ukeje v. Ukeje (2014) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1418) 384 (SC)
TABLE OF STATUTES AND INSTRUMENTS
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), ss. 1, 42Nigerian Events Calendar
Administration of Estates Law, Cap A3, Laws of Lagos State 2004
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap A9, LFN 2004
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979
Customary Courts Law, Cap C25, Laws of Ogun State 2006
Land Use Act, Cap L5, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004
Married Women’s Property Law, Cap M6, Laws of Lagos State
National Gender Policy of Nigeria (2006, revised 2021)
BY
LYDIA EHISUORIA OHONSI ESQ.
Info@kohlleedslegal.ng.
081 3486 8503.Law Enforcement Gear
March 2026.
[1](2014) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1418) 384 (SC). The Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 11 April 2014.
[2]Section 42(1) and (2), Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
[3]Administration of Estates Law, Cap A3, Laws of Lagos State 2004, Section 49(5) (now repealed/amended following the Ukeje decision).
[4]The Igbo customary rule was to the effect that a female child, by reason of her gender alone, could not inherit from her father’s estate. See also Nezianya v. Okagbue (1963) 1 All NLR 352.
[5]Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, in Ukeje v. Ukeje (2011) (unreported) CA/L/680/2007, before its elevation to the Supreme Court.
[6]Section 42(2), CFRN 1999: ‘No citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his birth.’
[7]Section 3(1) of the Customary Courts Law, Cap C25, Laws of Ogun State 2006, for example, requires courts to apply customary law only where it is not repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.
[8]Uke v. Iro (2001) 11 NWLR (Pt. 723) 196; Cole v. Cole (1898) 1 NLR 15 — among the earliest cases establishing repugnancy test.
[9]Nezianya v. Okagbue (1963) 1 All NLR 352; Mojekwu v. Mojekwu (1997) 7 NWLR (Pt. 512) 283.
[10]Mojekwu v. Mojekwu (1997) 7 NWLR (Pt. 512) 283. The Court of Appeal per Niki Tobi JCA (as he then was) held that the ‘Oli-ekpe’ custom which denied a woman from inheriting her husband’s property was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.
[11]Per Oguntade JCA in Mojekwu v. Ejikeme (2000) 5 NWLR (Pt. 657) 402 at 431: ‘No matter the circumstances, a woman is not to be treated as a lesser being than a man.’
[12]Anekwe v. Nweke (2014) 9 NWLR (Pt. 1412) 393 (SC). The Supreme Court held in this case that Awka customary law which disinherited a widow was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.
[13]Per Rhodes-Vivour JSC (as he then was) delivering the lead judgment of the Supreme Court in Ukeje v. Ukeje (2014) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1418) 384 at 401.
[14]Section 1(1) and (3), Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended); Marwa v. Nyako (2012) 6 NWLR (Pt. 1296) 199.Nigerian Events Calendar
[15]Peenok Investments Ltd v. Hotel Presidential Ltd (1982) 12 SC 1; Attorney-General of Ogun State v. Aberuagba (1985) 1 NWLR (Pt. 3) 395 — on the hierarchy of laws in Nigeria.
[16]Article 2, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by Nigeria in 1985. See also the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
[17]See the Married Women’s Property Law, Cap M6, Laws of Lagos State; also the Land Use Act, Cap L5, LFN 2004 — whose gender-neutral provisions have been used to argue equal land access.
[18]Onwuchekwa v. Onwuchekwa (1991) 5 NWLR (Pt. 194) 739; In Re: Goods of Effiong (1964) NNLR 96.
[19]Mojekwu v. Mojekwu (1997) 7 NWLR (Pt. 512) 283; Edet v. Essien (1932) 11 NLR 47; Dawodu v. Danmole (1958) 3 FSC 46; Okonkwo v. Okagbue (1994) 9 NWLR (Pt. 368) 301.
[20]See generally, Chioma Ngozi Okonkwo, ‘Gender Discrimination and Customary Law in Nigeria: An Appraisal of Recent Case Law’ (2015) 5(1) Nnamdi Azikiwe University Journal of International Law and Jurisprudence 78.
[21]Administration of Estates Law Amendment, Lagos State, 2015. See also Gender Equal Opportunities Bill (Federal, 2016), though not yet enacted at federal level.Law Enforcement Gear
[22]United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality; National Gender Policy of Nigeria (2006, revised 2021).
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