A recent video of a young Igbo woman weeping over her culture’s inheritance laws has set Nigerian social media ablaze. Her pain was raw and specific: the realisation that, simply because she is a woman, she is barred from being a heir to her father. This visceral reaction has sparked a familiar debate, one often met with a defensive chorus that seeks to balance the narrative by highlighting the “positive” sides of Igbo tradition.
While this defence is often well-intentioned, it ultimately sidesteps the core issue. To tell a grieving daughter about the revered Umuada or the financial wisdom of a wife is to offer her a beautiful flower when she is asking for a key to her father’s house. It misses the profound hurt caused by a system that, at its very foundation, tells her she is less than her brother.
Let’s be clear: the institutions defenders often point to are real. The Umuada, the powerful collective of a lineage’s daughters, is a formidable force in many communities. They can settle disputes and hold men accountable. Likewise, the idea of the wife as Odozie Aku—the builder and manager of family wealth—is not a myth. Many Igbo women command immense respect and wield significant financial authority within their households, determining philanthropy and managing resources with sharp acumen.
But this is where the defence stumbles. Managing a budget is not the same as owning the land. Being a powerful peacemaker in the community does not translate to a fundamental right of ownership in your father’s home. The reverence given to an Ada is profound, but it is often ceremonial. The power to control spending is practical, but it can be contingent. Neither can erase the sting of a tradition that explicitly states that the family’s tangible assets—the land, the houses, the legacy—must bypass daughters entirely.
This is the heart of the matter. The issue isn’t that Igbo culture has no respect for women; it’s that this respect has clear, hard limits when it comes to economics and legacy. The inheritance law is not a minor flaw; it is a cornerstone of a system that views a woman as ultimately belonging to her husband’s lineage, making her a temporary member of her own. This has devastating real-world consequences. We have all heard the stories—of widows thrown into the streets by greedy relatives, of capable daughters watching their less-deserving brothers inherit everything, of families torn apart by a tradition that privileges gender over fairness.
Some argue that these criticisms are a “single story,” influenced by outsiders and Nollywood. They point to colonial accounts and, ironically, even the Bible’s own patriarchal verses to suggest the problem is universal. But this is a distraction. The pain of a young woman in 2024, who sees her future limited by her own culture, is not less valid because a British missionary a century ago was biased, or because Saint Paul also subjugated women. Her pain is her own, and it is real.
Culture is not a museum exhibit to be preserved under glass. It is a living, breathing entity that must evolve to reflect the values of its people. The tears of that young woman are not an attack on Igbo tradition; they are a passionate plea for it to grow. She is not asking for the destruction of our heritage, but for its expansion to include her fully.
Continually defending the system by listing its strengths while ignoring its fundamental flaws prioritises tradition over people. The true strength of a culture lies not in stubborn resistance, but in the courage to correct its own injustices. We must move beyond a defensive posture and truly listen to the pain being expressed. Until we do, we risk being on the wrong side of history, telling our daughters to be content with flowers while we lock the doors to their inheritance.
