Developing Country Studies www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-607X (Paper) ISSN 2225-0565 (Online) Vol.5, No.14, 2015 26 Improved Female Customary Land Inheritance Necessary for Accelerating Socio-Economic Development in South East Nigeria Ogugua V.C. Ikpeze Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria Abstract Customary land inheritance is a major avenue for land acquisition in Nigeria. Culturally, Nigeria is predominantly a patriarchal society with inheritance mainly devolving along the male lineage, the womenfolk being largely excluded especially as regards land inheritance. The study documents the extent of male/female imbalance among the Igbo ethnic group of South East Nigeria, one of the three most populous in the country. In order to drive balanced, accelerated and sustainable socio-economic development, suggestions are proffered for necessary cultural, legislative and legal adjustments to improve the status quo, including amendment of and better implementation of the Land Use Act. Keywords: Nigerian customary female land inheritance, improvement. 1. Introduction The social climate globally focuses on the status of women in terms of enforcement of their rights especially against any form of discrimination. However, women are the world’s poorest. In Nigeria, this could be due to a combination of factors including obnoxious cultural practices like inability to inherit land from their families and communities. In Nigeria, land can be owned by acquisition in a variety of ways – first settlement, conquest, long possession, purchase, gift or grant, government allocation, inheritance/succession or devolution (Ikpeze 2009). Historically, land ownership and utilization in Nigeria had been plagued by grave difficulties arising from application of many different customary inheritance and statutory land tenure systems, ultimately culminating in the promulgation of the Land Use Decree in 1978 (Allot 1978). The Nigerian Federal Government had intended to use this law to harmonise land tenure systems and vest all land to the various tiers of government. Problems have persisted leading to reforms and the emergence of the successor Land Use Act of 1990 (Mabogunje 1992; Federal Government of Nigeria 1990; Babalakin 2004). Notwithstanding the above, most lands are still held by individuals, families and communities, and acquisition is still mainly by customary inheritance. The present study focuses on the Igbo ethnic group of South East Nigeria. The South East is one of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and comprises five states - Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States – and is mainly populated by the Igbo ethnic group which is one of the three most populous in Nigeria. Field study was undertaken to determine the true extent to which females inherit land/property culturally in this ethnic group in order to make recommendations that could foster a more balanced and sustainable socio-economic development. The benefits of the research will be applicable to and therefore extend to other parts of Nigeria and Africa with similar cultural patterns of land inheritance. 2. Methodology The research was centered on field work based questionnaire consisting of forty questions with subsections. By eliciting responses from representative samples of the population, analyzing the data and presenting the results directly and with charts, it would be shown what obtained customarily regarding the inheritance rights of females among the Igbos of Anambra State of Nigeria. Determining the current situation will inform as to the need for flexibility, future adaptations and legislations to improve on land inheritance rights of females with the desire for their general development, emancipation, economic empowerment and prosperity. 3.1 Study area and Subjects Anambra State with a population of just over four million (National Population Commission 2015) consists of three Senatorial Zones (Central, North and South). Stratified random sampling was done to select two Local Government Areas (LGAs) from each of the Zones. Similarly, one community was selected from each of the selected six LGAs. The six selected communities were Ogidi, Awka (Central zone), Umueri, Ogbunike (North zone), Nnewi, Ekwulobia (South Zone). About 300 individuals were to be selected from households in each of the six communities . Within each community, males and females were selected to represent the young (18-35 years), middle age (36-60 years) and old (61+ years) proportionately. Their knowledge of, and views on customary land inheritance by females in their various communities was obtained.