INHERITANCE

The aim of this study was to examine the age long practice of denying Esan women the right to inherit from their parents. This practice which is rooted in custom and tradition of the Esan people have resulted in social, economic and political disequilibrium among family members. Parents are abandoned by their rich children in protest of a tradition that denies them the right of inheritance. The objectives of the study were to analyze the geographical location and the world view of the Esan people, examine the phenomenon of inheritance in Esan land as it relates to women, investigate women's rights to inheritance, investigate the root causes of the denial of women’s rights to inheritance in Esan land, bring to the fore the impact of disinheritance on Esan women, identify the similitude of Zelophehad’s daughters in Numbers 27:1-11 with the Esan situation and investigate if Moses’ judgement was a one-off practice or it became the norm in Israel. The study deployed a multidimensional methodological approach. The first is African biblical hermeneutics approach which has to do with the decolonization of biblical studies by putting into consideration African social, cultural, political and economic environment in interpreting biblical text. Another is the exegetical approach of biblical inquiry. This approach, adopts the grammatico- historical analysis of words and clauses in biblical text and applies its findings to a particular context. Additionally, this thesis utilized various secondary materials such as Hebrew dictionaries, lexicons, journal collections, and library resources. Oral interviews were also conducted to get views of the
Esan people on the subject of inheritance. The findings of the research include inter-alia: that the denial of inheritance to women in Esanland is against the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended in section 42 which protects every Nigerian against discrimination. Denial of inheritance to women in Esan is rooted in economic and spiritual matrix. The ancient Israelite society, though patriarchal in nature in an exceptional case gave inheritance of land to Zelophehad daughters; that the analysis of Numbers 27:1-11 is relevant to the Esan context as a model to address women right of inheritance; that there is a similarity between the ancient Israelite custom of inheritance and the Esan people in relation to women; that in the course of this research it was discovered that the beneficiaries of this current system prefer the status quo. While other who are disadvantaged by the system want a change. The research concludes that Esan land faces the problem of implosion if inheritance laws are not amended. Moses’ approach would go a long way in correcting a practice that has become a ticking time bomb in Esanland.