At the first colloquium of Epiphany Azinge Foundation held the remaining week in Abuja, the convener of the program and former Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Professor Epiphany Azinge, described the continuous discrimination against ladies by gender as an anomaly.
Titled “Women’s Traditional Inheritance in Nigeria: Breaking the Barriers of Gender Discrimination,” the roundtable added together felony luminaries, gender enthusiasts, and participants of the academia to chart a way ahead. Some include the Dean of Law faculty, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Professor Joy Ezeilo; Chief James Onoja (SAN); Professor Nnamdi Aduba, Chief Rita Garuba; and Mrs. Onikepo Braithwaite. Also at the occasion was the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, Mr. Tony Ojukwu.
The visitors decried the massive hole between judicial pronouncements and real exercise in their diverse contributions, mainly in the rural areas. Citing the Supreme Court judgment between Ukeje and Ukeje, Professor Azinge blamed the gap between provisions of regulation and their implementations or enforcement on the shortage of recognition.
Azinge maintained that it was an anomaly for girls to be discriminated against within the 21st century despite several international conventions against such practices. Speaking about the motivation for the roundtable dialogue on gender discrimination, the Professor stated that he has come to remember that the pronouncements of the Supreme Court on Ukeje and Ukeje seemed to have complied with the provision of Section forty-two of the Constitution. Still, the project has remained the software or implementation of the pronouncements.
Recall that within the lot quoted Ukeje vs. Ukeje matter, the Supreme Court had, in its judgment, invoked the provisions of Section 42(1)(a) and (2) of the Constitution in quashing the unknown Igbo commonplace law that disentitles a woman toddler from partaking within the sharing of her deceased father’s property.
Section 42 (2) of the 1999 Constitution gives that citizen of Nigeria of a specific network, ethnic organization, vicinity or foundation, intercourse, religion, the political opinion shall now not, by way of cause handiest that he’s such someone shall be subjected either expressly by or inside the sensible application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any govt or administrative motion of the government, to disabilities or regulations to which residents of Nigeria of different communities, ethnic companies, places or foundation, intercourse, religion or political opinion aren’t made problem.
It held similarly that “no citizen of Nigeria will be subjected to any disability or deprivation simply with the aid of motive of the circumstances of his start.” Given the above, Prof. Azinge felt that it has grown imperative to interact in an attention creation that could bring about a trade-in mindset through village elders and traditional institutions who are custodians of subculture and some of the dangerous practices in opposition to ladies.
He said: “The law in paper and the law in the movement are two things. We want to begin the sensitization and advocacy that would deliver the judgment or pronouncement toward humans. “We also want to attract to the moral sense of the people at the rural villages and get the elders and traditional authorities to comprehend that we’ve moved on as a people in terms of the pronouncements of the court docket and that we must start converting our mindset.
“Again, it was another possibility for humans to understand that although it isn’t always possible for the traditional establishments and those to apply the provisions of the regulation of Ukeje and Ukeje, they can also seek alternative approaches to resolving the problem, which encompasses both settling their daughters while they’re alive or with the aid of writing a Will that they recognize can be complied with or adhered to at loss of life.”
He held that it’s far anachronistic and repugnant for Nigerians to consider that a female baby isn’t equal or in keeping with a male baby. “We have seen them do better in many ways, academically and profession-wise, and increasingly more, we are given that maximum of our judges are girls, and we can’t preserve to relegate them. But once more, it’s for a task to the womenfolk to try to push up upward and make their marks in any such manner that when this sort of count number comes before them as a female judge, they know what to do, due to the fact if judges who are girls can upward thrust up and guard their very own, I believe we can make progress.
“More importantly, mothers need to additionally upward push as much as the obligation because in most of those moves, if the moms do nt assert their government, their husbands will in no way gnderstand that they’re not doing the right thing. “The judiciary has carried out its paintings; its miles now left for the society to peers how they can paintings toward making use of Supreme Court’s pronouncements on in the case of Ukeje vs. Ukeje,” Azinge stated.
