Despite the law’s passage, Nigerian women still face barriers to land-sharing

Despite the law's passage, Nigerian women still face barriers to land-sharing

If a woman is given land in her family, it means she will benefit more than the men when she gets married….

Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi

August 7, 2024. 10:30am

Women in Nigeria’s Rivers State have continued to struggle for land, despite the Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022, The Colonist Report Africa investigation has found.

At the time of the law’s passage, the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, stated that the new law would allow women in Rivers State to fully realise their potential and inherit their entitlements, while also paving the way for discrimination to be challenged in court.

The Colonist Report visited three communities in River State to determine whether community leaders followed the law, but we found that some leaders are yet to comply with the law. Therefore, the passage of Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022 has not significantly eliminated the historical discrimination women in Rivers State face concerning access to and inheritance of land.

All of the communities we visited are agrarian, with the majority of women relying on farmland to plant crops and support their families through the profits earned when they are sold in markets.

The Colonist Report Africa discovered that, despite being denied farmland, some women had acquired land for farming and/or building a house — by purchasing it from teenagers who were allocated land but did not have the resources to develop it.

Furthermore, we found that women are not coming forward to share their land-related issues due to fear of reprisal from in-laws or community leaders, and as a result, rights organisations and women’s associations are unable to advocate for them.

Existing traditions that suppress women

In Ogoni custom, every female firstborn, by tradition, is not allowed to marry but is allowed to have children in her parent’s house, and the children automatically belong to the woman’s family and not her biological father—a tradition that is popularly known as Sirah Syndrome.

The “Sirah Syndrome” is one tradition in Ogoniland that has relegated women to the background and lowers women’s and their children’s chances of “survival and development,” as contained in the 2003 Child Rights Act. Sirah syndrome was once observed by all communities in Ogoni, but according to our source, many no longer do, but it is still observed in communities such as Kpean and Eleme, to name a few.

When a first daughter is born into a family, Susan Serekara-Nwikhana, whose mother Salome Nwiduumteh Nwinee, is among the women affected by Sirah syndrome at the age of 15, says that the girls [first daughters] grow up to understand their fate and that she automatically becomes a slave to her family and all the men who come her way as a result of Sirah Syndrome.

“In the end, all of these children belong to her extended family, rather than the man or men, who impregnated her.”

According to Susan, despite her mother being pretty and attracting many suitors, she was not allowed to get married. “Even though the tradition has deprived the girls of marrying, “land is not shared with these women, which they depend on to cater for their immediate family.”

“But where family lands are not allocated to them, the women and their children suffer a lot. “They had no choice but to buy land for farming,” she noted.

Susan said: “Even though she [the first daughter] desires to get married, she cannot due to the Sirah Syndrome culture, in which she is not allowed to marry; rather, she is free to give birth to as many children as possible in her paternal home.”

The Rivers State Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022 by Governor Nyesom Wike was signed into law by the former governor in October of 2022. The state was the first in Nigeria to pass the law. Since the law was passed, only one case has been reported about women winning a case in court. This suggests that the law appears beautiful on paper or a window dressing.

Rumuwhara community

Ngozi Orowhu Justine, a farmer in the Rumuwhara community in Obia/Akpor had 14 plots of land she inherited from her father. When her father died, the land she used for farming was seized by some community leaders and sold to men in the community because she had no male siblings, she told The Colonist Report Africa.

Orowhu had to resort to petty trading to make ends meet. But she later stopped trading after her husband fell ill. In 2014, she sued the community leaders for taking her land, but according to her, justice was never served.

She now uses government lands to farm, pending when the land will be used. This means that when the government is ready to use the land, she will have to leave it.

Her hope is now hung on the law signed by the former Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, which gave women the right to inherit their father’s land.

“As the government has said that women have rights to inherit their father’s property, If I see an advocate to fight for me, I will reopen the case again in court,” she said.

Chris Wopara, the youth secretary to the Rumuwhara youth in Oroigwe said that females in the community are not entitled to lands following the culture and tradition of the community; and males given lands must be 25 years of age and older who are enrolled in the activities of the family. The sharing of the land with the male usually happens after a year of continuous work for the family, he said.

Wopara noted that lands are shared yearly in Wopara family but women are not given the land because “the land shared by the man belongs to his wife and children. He said the last land was shared in 2022 because of a lack of land.

According to him, following the State law for women to partake in the sharing of lands, “the youth of Rumuwhara are amending their constitution to advocate for the women, but the elders are standing against it. “Therefore, the constitution is not yet amended. ” He hopes to see more advocates for women because they have been deprived of community land sharing.

“The government doesn’t have the right to force us to give land to our daughters because the daughters will eventually get married,’ said another elder, Fineface Wopara of the Rumuwhara community.

Fineface told The Colonist Report Africa that if a woman is given property in her father’s house, “it means she will benefit more than the male. “The properties of her husband belong to her.”

Omuanwa community

In the Omanwa community, every male child [even a one-year-old baby] is given a plot of land to do whatever they want during the annual land sharing. The Colonist Report Africa gathered that women are not allocated land for building; rather, they can be leased to farmers, which would be taken from them after harvesting.

The Colonist Report Africa interviewed six women and two male elders at the same time to gain a better understanding of the situation and whether the community has started allocating lands to women since the law was passed in 2022.

However, in 2023, lands were shared among men, including kids in the Omuanwa community, but no woman, whether, “single, widow, or married, was allocated a land,” said Florence Ejinya, a farmer who has been suffering from a lack of land to make her produce. “In the Omuneji community, there is no more land for the women to farm,” she said.

According to the group of women we had a meeting with, community land is shared with married and financial women to farm, while the permanent lands shared with male counterparts are not allocated to be given to women.

When The Colonist Report Africa asked if there had been any form of protest, expressing concern about the inhumane treatment, neglect and discrimination by people in authority, the women said they had never demonstrated any form of protest.

Another villager, Joy Chukuma, told The Colonist Report Africa in her local language that she and other women had never been officially informed about the Rivers State law that gives women the right to partake in inheritance or land properly but had only heard it as rumoured by people in the state.

The women seem reluctant to demand their rights, despite the law. When asked if they would be willing to speak out about their plight if any support organisations came out to fight for them to secure lands like their male counterpart, Chukwuma and other women we spoke with said “no’. According to them, the tradition that deprived women of land has been in place for ages, even before they were born.

The women in unison echoed that the community laws should be amended to include women in land sharing. While some women are lucky to acquire lands used for farming through their husbands, widows and single women without money to buy land from those that have been allocated suffer to survive.

Gibson Ajoku, an elder in the Omuanwa community, said the refusal to allocate lands to women has existed since the days of his grandfathers and “cannot be changed.”

According to Ajoku, women are supported through the rights of their husbands’ shares of lands. However, when asked whether he is aware of the recent law that gives rights to women to take in inheritance, he said, he is unaware.

He said: “If it is in my power, woman ought to be given land. “ We are not fair to women because they support their families, and I also agree that many women are capable of buying and developing land.”

“It is prohibited by custom for women to be given land,” said T. C. Ejiowhor, another community elder in Omuanwa.

Ejiowhor, who admitted to being aware of the state law that gives women the right to partake in the sharing of inheritance, confirmed to The Colonist Report Africa, that farmlands are still prohibited for women to be given lands or inherit from their father or grandfather, nor do they partake in brideprice sharing to marry.

According to him, lands given to young boys are also taken back following the failure to build after six years but no welfare support is given to women and the impact is felt on a widow who has no money except a kind heart who shows compassion to them.

Rumukurushi community

Unlike Omuanwa, the Rumukurushi community in Obio Akpor Local Government Area, Rivers State, is located in the state’s developed urban metropolis. The Oil Mill market, a popular market in the community, attracts people from within and outside the state to buy and sell a wide range of goods and services. However, women have continued to struggle for land, with urbanisation exacerbating the problem.

Blessing Amam remembered that the last time land was shared in the community was in 2021 and no woman was allocated a portion or half. She said women are denied from partaking in the sharing of lands in Rumukurushi, and any woman that has lands from an inheritance, the community leaders, will seize the lands except in a situation where the land is bought.

Amam said: “As a woman, if you don’t have a male child, no property will be given to you unless you have a good brother-in-law who will give you some portion of his land for you to farm on.

She claims that the community lacks land because all the land has been sold to migrants and immigrants. “There are no more lands for the youth,” she continued and appealed that “women should be given equal rights as men and if a man is given 3 plots of lands, women should be given at least half a plot.”

Grace Amadi, a retired 70-year-old teacher, was also lucky to have had grown-up children and never struggled with land issues. According to her, the last time land was shared in her community was in 2014 but she never had any issues because she had children and a husband who supported her. At a young age, she used her husband’s land to farm.

The Colonist Report Africa requested to speak with a few custodians of the law in the Rumukurushi community who were available at the time of the visit, but none of them agreed to comment.

Rights Group interventions

The Colonist Report Africa found that the political feud between former Governor Nyeom Wike and current Governor Sim Fubara has hampered the law’s implementation in communities and some government agencies. According to a source in two ministries, government agencies and departments are yet to receive an official copy of the law from state legislators as the fight for power continues.

However, women defenders and rights groups have continued to sensitise community residents despite the political fights in the state that have been assumed to delay the full implementation of the law.

Dr. Emem Okon, the executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource, told The Colonist Report Africa that even though the political fights in the state have hindered the organisation from having a copy of the law from the House of Assembly, sensitization about the law has taken places in communities.

According to Dr. Okon, her organisation has visited Eleme and Egebma communities to discuss with elders and community stakeholders the passage of the law that gave women the right to acquire land.

“Since 2003, we have been campaigning around human rights issues, including before and after the VAPP law was passed— sensitising the people across 3 states,” she says and continues. “When the law that gave women rights to acquire landed property was passed, we involved FIDA to follow us to Eleme to explain the law to the elders and worked with the National Orientation Agency to use their social media platforms to address gender and accountability issues and the violence against women.”

Dr. Okon wants women deprived of property to report to Kebetkache or any NGO to help them get justice. She claims that some women who approached her organization after their in-laws took their property have successfully pursued justice in court.

Okon said: “When the case is serious, we report to FIDA, who help them fight for the case. ” An example was one case in which a woman lost her husband and her brother-in-law collected the husband’s house, denying the widow a home to stay in and burying her husband but after we helped the woman through FIDA, two rooms were given to the woman to live in while preparing for her husband’s burial.”

Green Isaac, the executive director of Relief International Africa, an organisation that advocates against human rights abuses and assists people in need, stated that preventing women from acquiring land has been a long-standing tradition in many communities and that it may take a few years for such a tradition to be easily broken from the norm.

However, since the law was passed, Relief International Africa has used media such as radio to raise awareness about women’s rights, according to Isaac. “Though funding has been a challenge, but whenever we have the opportunity to visit communities, we typically educate the people about women’s rights in every family.”

Relief International Africa opened a human rights clinic in Port Harcourt on February 29, 2024. According to Isaac, the clinic’s goals include free legal representation and addressing women’s issues. Since the clinic’s opening on Tuesdays, 23 cases—including intimidation of children and land grabs—have been received.

Dr Christy Iwezor, executive director of the Canan Peace, Women, and Community Development Initiative, an organisation dedicated to empowering and developing women, stated that advocacy is already underway with traditional institutions because they are the custodians of the beliefs and norms that deprive women, but it has not been easy.

Dr Iwezor stated; “Meeting with traditional institutions to discuss this issue is not easy, but we are working hard to persuade the traditional rulers to be advocates of the law, and it is progress that will continue.”

We have been encouraging women to speak out, and during 2024 Women’s Day, we had a session with some women, and the stories they told were terrible,” she said. “But we discovered that sometimes these women come out later to ask for the case to be withdrawn because they are afraid of losing their homes or husbands.” Our advice has been that they should always speak out so that they can get help

Government intervention

Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, NHRC is one of the organisations tasked with raising awareness about human rights issues through public education, research, and dialogue.

State co-ordinator of NHRC, Okoroji Chinwe said since the law’s passage, the Commission has visited communities in both urban and rural-urban areas to educate people, including schools.

Chinwe stated that the reason for taking the sensitization to school is to teach children the importance of allowing women to participate in property sharing and protecting girls from discrimination.

She stated, “We visit communities at least seven times a month, but the challenge has been a lack of funding to travel to remote areas and conduct sensitisation” This is why we are making an effort to see the State Governor for assistance.”

Still, Chinwe noted that some women would be reluctant and ignore the sensitisation. “You will be talking to them and ‘women’ will be walking away, asking you, if the information you are sharing will bring rice for them to eat.”

Chinwe told The Colonist Report Africa that since the law was passed, “only two women [sisters] have reported a case in which their brothers have collected the women’s property, including lands for shops and houses given to them by their father before he died.”

She narrated that when the women “brought the case to us [NHRC] in 2023 and we told the brothers about the new law that allows women to acquire property and told them that we will refer the case to the probate officers, who will eventually collect 25% from the properties when the case is resolved.”

According to the NHRC boss, the brothers agreed and stated that the matter would be resolved, only for the women to return in July 2024 with the same complaints that the brothers never kept their promise to give them the properties their late father had allocated to them.

When The Colonist Report Africa asked The National Orientation Agency, NOA, a government agency that raises awareness among Nigerians regarding government policies, programs, and what activities they have been doing to sensitise people in communities about the passage of the law, Young Ayo-Tamuno, state coordinator, said the “political situation has made it difficult for the NOA to get a copy of the law from the house of assembly but the agency has moved on in sensitising the community residents and explaining the rights of women in partaking in the sharing of landed property.”

According to Ayo-Tamuno, the agency has been involved in using the media to sensitise the people about the passage of the law and has worked with Kebetkache, a women’s advocacy organisation, to sensitise people.

Roseline Uranta, Rivers State Commissioner for Women’s Affairs, stated that the issue of women being denied landed property is a cultural tradition rather than a result of government policy or laws, as the government don’t deny women landed property.

Uranta told The Colonist Report Africa in her office in Port Harcourt that women who are deprived of their property should report the issue to the women’s affairs ministry. According to her, some women do report issues to the ministry and investigations are carried out to resolve the issues. “If it is serious, we refer them to FIDA.”

Bio Adata, chairperson of FIDA, worries about the rate at which women are being treated but is hopeful that the law will help give women the strength to push for justice.

According to her, despite the passage of Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022, some communities are still bent on not giving land to women.

FIDA has gone to communities to sensitise women about their rights. However, some of the elders think that it is the culture for women not to be given land. “As we speak, we are still having cases reported in our office.

Additional reporting, Faith Imbu and Kevin Woke. Ikwere language transcription was done by Kevin Woke

“This report was facilitated by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Champion Building component of its Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement project.”