RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Women Demand More Access To Land

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Aug 23 1999 (IPS) - Mary Obajulu, a 40-year-old civil servant, bitterly recalls how a bank manager turned down her application for a loan simply because she failed to produce a letter of support from her husband.

The manager refused to accept Obajulu’s concern that her husband would never support her bid to acquire a property. “That is our policy madam,” he reportedly told her.

Her colleague, Comfort Coleman, shares a similar experience. “Bank managers are not disposed to giving loans to women. As a matter of fact, being a woman disqualifies you from getting such a loan. Unless you personally know the manager, he or she will demand a letter of guarantee from your husband,” she claims.

Wealthy women are, however, not affected by the regulation. “Buying a plot or owning a property in Lagos is just as easy for a woman as it is for a man, as long as you have the money,” Coleman says. “The highest bidder buys the property whether the bidder’s a woman or a man”.

“I know some rich women who have bought and built houses in Lagos,” she says.

But single women living in Lagos, where the minimum monthly wage is about 32 US Dollars, find it hard to rent a flat, or a house. This is because landlords are hesitant to let out their property to them because of cultural prejudices and negative portrayals of women as sex objects.

Discriminatory tradition and customs also deny women the right to inherit property. In northern Nigeria, for example, female daughters take only one half of the housing and land that the male children are entitled to.

According to statistics by the Nigeria Habitat Coalition, a non- governmental organisation (ngo) based in Lagos, more than 90 percent of all inheritance lands and property in Nigeria are registered in men’s name.

Nigeria’s Federal Office of Statistics puts the percentage of male-headed household in urban area at 81 percent and female headed at 19 percent.

Although Nigeria, with a population of more than 110 million, has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), no action has been taken to integrate the convention into the west African country’s constitution.

Government has not helped women either. The housing needs of women are rarely considered when formulating policies and programmes. Women are rarely consulted and brought into the process of policy formulation and execution.

“Female access to property revolves around legal status of women. In Nigeria, that legal status more or less subordinates women. The culture of our society also subordinates them,” says Eze Onyekpere, Executive Director of Shelter Rights Initiative.

“Women do not inherit property in most parts of the country and if you do not inherit, it means there is no way of access to land”, he says.

“Access to land and housing also depends on affordability. Women have little or no access to land in Nigeria. What they have is right of user,” he adds.

The discrimination against women is not only limited to Nigeria, but also to other countries in the region.

“In virtually all African countries, custom prevents women from owning land and property. Some male-favoured traditions and values dictate that these property belong to husbands and fathers and are to be inherited by their sons,” according to Uju Obiora of the Nigeria Habitat Coalition.

In some extreme cases, Obiora says, women are disinherited and thrown out of their matrimonial homes upon the death of their husband.

A coalition of 32 ngos, that recently met in the Nigerian commercial capital of Lagos, called upon government to facilitate women’s access to land.

“There is need for special laws protecting women inheritance rights. Such laws are presently lacking in Nigeria. There is also the need for affirmative action to ensure that women have access to land and housing,” says Onyekpere.

“It is not just enough to proscribe in the Nigerian constitution a section prohibiting discrimination against women. Women’s socio-economic rights should be enhanced to empower them to own property just like their male counterparts,” he says.