Customary Land Ownership and Women’s Land Rights in Nigeria: Extending the Frontiers of Feminist Environmental Justice

Nigerian women are subject to deprivation in many ramifications despite the Constitutional safeguard protecting their rights against discrimination. Women in some Nigerian societies are still not recognized as having tangible entitlement in communal and family lands. They are mostly decorated with the rights of users even though they constitute the larger population of farmers in rural areas. The article is an investigation into the nature of women’s land rights in Nigeria and the disproportionate distribution of social and economic benefits flowing from the exploitation of the environment. This enquiry is prompted by the fact that oil mining and exploration activities adversely impact the environment, leaving women as the most affected. Notwithstanding, women are not substantially involved in the negotiations leading to reparation, remediation and the payment of compensation or the distribution of other social and economic benefits. The study finds that discriminatory customary inheritance laws impair women’s land rights in Nigeria including participatory environmental rights. Users of native lands deal with heads of communities and family heads who are mostly male thereby promoting unfair treatment and denial of women’s rights to share in the benefits of the environment even though women are more vulnerable to environmental harm, occasioning wider gender economic disparity and greater social and cultural inequality.