In Nigeria, Estate Planning is governed by the WILLs Act, Persons personal law, Customs and Religion. Preparing for the futures and the inevitable is important otherwise you risk unintended consequences of depriving your loved one’s of your Estate or having your assets ending up with unintended beneficiaries or sometimes even waste. It can also lead to protracted disputes among siblings (the family of Rotimi Williams are still in court till date). With people living in one place but having the cultural beliefs of another, Multiple families, assets in different jurisdictions and ever changing tax and inheritance laws. We owe our families, partners, dependents etc a legacy free from contention, stress and unnecessary expenses.
How we pass Asset via Estate Planning depends on the type of ownership, location of assets, your religions and cultural beliefs and practices. Most Nigerian Tribes and cultures operate under the principle of PRIMOGENITURE (Succession by the eldest male child in the absence of clear Estate Planning arrangement. Every tribe in nigeria adopt this principle. Let’s take a look into the adoption of this principle in the Eastern part of the country (the Ibo’s) the customary law and culture require the eldest male child to take charge of the Estate of a deceased person and he has the prerogative as to how the siblings benefits from the Estate. The culture even relegated the female child as to benefiting from deceased Estate until the Supreme Court Judgement in 2014 on the celebrated case of the UKEJE V UKEJE. Let’s take a look at what happen, Mr Lazarus Ogbonnaya a native of Umuahia in IMO State who lived and died in Lagos 27th September 1981. He has two wives and two kids. One each from each wife. The first is a female and the second a male. The brother who is the junior and the mother took over the estate and exclude the elder sister and the mother. The lady went to court in 1981 to challenge the culture/ tradition but she did not get judgement till 2014 (33 years later) when the entire Asset has been depleted but that judgment changes the dynamics of the position of the tradition/culture that female child has equal right like their male counterparts on the Estate of their father. However, how many of us can wait that long or have the tenacity and fund to pursue case for 33 years knowing our judicial system. There is another case in 2017 Ihemadu V Ihemadu of Mbaise LGA IMO. The court upheld the same position as of the 2014 judgement. This time around the man has only female children and their uncle took over the deceased Estate excluding the female children with a proper estate planning, this situation can be avoided…… follow us on the Journey as we look into how this tradition/culture of PRIMOGENITURE principle affects the Yoruba’s, the Benin/South-South and the Muslim in part 5.