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Ikpeazu ends agelong Igbo custom discriminatory to women

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has ended the agelong tradition forbidding women from inheriting their parents.

The governor, Wednesday, signed into law the Female Persons Right of Inheritance of Property bill, passed by the state house of assembly.

The law, which is the first to be promulgated in Nigeria’s five Igbo-speaking states, effectively halts the discrimation against female-child in property inheritance.

Ikepazu said the practice making women second class citizens had become anachronistic.Â

The governor applauded the Assembly for showing courage on the passage of the bill. He describe the law as “historic, positively disruptive and capable of setting our society on the path of equal opportunities and sustainable development.”

TheCornet reports that the new law is in sync with a Supreme Court ruling, which in 2020, upheld the right of Igbo female-child to inherit the parents.

The suit was between Gladys Ada Ukeje, the daughter of late Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje, who sued her family for disinheriting her from her father’s estate.

The trial court, court of appeal, and the supreme court ruled in the litigant’s favour, thereby setting the stage for a sharp disagreement between supporters and opponents of the archaic tradition.

 

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