IGBOZURUOKE MEDIA

It is unfortunate that I have to divert attention from more critical issues; confronting Ndi Igbo to revisit a case that supposed not to have been even mentioned.  The non-entitlement of Igbo women to inherit their father’s property is a settled case by God. He validated this mandate by bestowing on Ndi Igbo the same culture He bequeathed the Jews whom He claimed to be His chosen race. All these are contained as His dictates in the Bible, the Christians’ Holy book that is accepted by all Christians including those frowning at this injunction.

The Jews don’t share ancestral property to their women, so as the Igbo and other tribes both in Nigeria and in other places, so why are the Igbo being singled out for ridicule and persecution? Why would an Igbo lady who professes the Christian faith and engages in its activities becomes agitated and dragged the matter to the courts. The most heart-rending part of the matter is when you see supposedly knowledgeably Igbo men supporting this infamy and instigating some lazy and lousy Igbo women.

As a Christian, you cannot adopt the Bible and condemn Igbo culture for non inheritance of ancestral property by females. According to Hebrew laws there is no place where women experienced such privilege. Even in the Book of Job 42:12, where Job daughters had some resemblance of gaining property, the case was different due to the circumstances of Job’s travails and his endevour to appreciate those who endured with him till God compensated him exceedingly.

The claim by most Igbo of being a group of the Jews race—whether they right or wrong—stems from this fact.  You can’t share a 98% semblance of culture with a race without being a part of them. Except on the issues reincarnation, the Igbo and Jews share the same affinity. Among other similarities, the Jews and the Igbo don’t include their daughters when counting family members. In Igbo tradition, only males are regarded as actual members of a household. For this reason, females are excluded from most activities. For a example, while a day-old son would be required to make financial contribution towards a project or an emergency, her mother or elder sisters, who may even be millionaires, would be exempted. In the Bible, all enumerations that identify a family line do not add females. You can see Jesus, son of Joseph but not Hanah, daughter of Joseph.

On the other hand, there is no law in Igbo land that says daughters cannot get a property from her father—the word here is “getting” not “inheriting.” Also, the rule is clear. A father who wishes to bequeath something to his daughter must act like Job. The property must be a personal property and not an ancestral possession. Also, he must give or transfer the property to her while he is alive and with his son/sons assent.

The reason is because, Igbo ancestral property do not only belong to a nuclear family but to an extended one or the kindred. For this reason, if a nuclear family does not have a son the property will remain in the family by automatically going to the nearest male relative. Except in the Bende Region, Abia North and some parts of Ebonyi State where entitlements are acknowledged from one’s mother side.

The unnecessary optics on this issue is due to the stupidity of some Igbo males who are instigating some imprudent and covetous Igbo females who see ancestral property as an easy meal for their idleness and laziness lousy nature. Let me inform them that the realization of their dream will never materialize. Any Igbo lady who attempts to enforce the inconsequential Supreme Court’s judgment of 2004 will be doing so at her own risk. In Igbo cosmology, ancestral matters of a family including the property are exclusive rights of a legitimate male child and not a privilege.

Daughters, who must get married, should go to their husband’s family where they become legitimate members of that family and fight for their rights. Where, an Igbo lady chooses not to get married or failed to marry for others reasons, she must maintain peace and desists from eyeing her family property.

The greatest success of a woman in Igbo land is to get married, be a good wife, a distinguished mother and one that would add values to a family that has made her a member. Therefore, an Igbo daughter is expected to fight for her right in her new home by using the good training and values she had acquired from her father’s household as a springboard to succeed. She does no longer have any right in her father’s household as the rights there now belong to daughters of other families who are now married into that family.

There is no room for a Yoruba and Egypt-type of marriage systems where a married daughter maintains has dual citizenship, where she would have rights in her husband’s family and be equally entitled to contest for rights in her father’s household.

Every culture has a purpose that must hold some values to it. The Igbo do not need such system. Because, the Jews and Igbo marriage systems remain the most solid and crisis-free till date which attest to their superiority. The internecine chaos and diabolical onslaughts that erupt once property are about to be shared in a Yoruba family etc., are scandalous and cannot be condoned in Igbo system.

On the other hand, the intermittent promotion of this matter by some Igbo women and their mischievous supporters is uncalled for as this issue is a settled one and those trying to revive it are simply trying to denigrate the Igbo or may suffering from delusion of grandeur.  

It is not any known if any female from other Nigerian tribes who have the same practice on female exclusion, had in any way challenged her culture. It is only in Igbo land that it happens. In the Ondo division of Yoruba land, there is a culture of regency. It is when a female member of a deceased monarch who just died is made a stand-in pending when a substantive monarch could be installed.

 As tempting as this arrangement may be for an ambitious regent who may like to overturn her mandate usurp the post may be, no Yoruba woman has attempted it. Till date, no Yoruba female has gone to the courts to contest a kingship stool against her male counterparts, after all, the Nigerian law that says Igbo females can inherit property did not say Yoruba women cannot be kings. So, it is only Igbo ladies who consider themselves the wisest and more educated would like to challenge everything in Igbo land.

Have you ever seen where a Yoruba lady or any of their top men of god, like Adoboye, Kumuyi, Oyedepo etc., mount the pipit and began to lambast their culture or traditions. Today, Igbo women and the  so—called men of god have destroyed and desiccated every deity or traditional enclave in Igbo land. In most Igbo community, you can no longer see a big tree. Those trees under which children engage in moonlight games in the past have all been branded evil trees mauled down and sold to loggers by Igbo men of god.

Like in Nigerian politics, the Igbo are their own greatest enemy. However, on this matter, if any Igbo woman or her male instigators try to use it to cause trouble, he or she will end up in a cesspit.

Boniface Alanwoko