Most Nigerians assume they know the answer to this. The house goes to the wife and children, obviously. Everyone would agree.
Then the man dies, and within days the assumption meets reality — relatives arriving with claims, an eldest son asserting a customary right to the whole estate, a widow discovering she cannot access her husband’s accounts, and a family that expected clarity finding themselves in court.
Family inheritance conflicts account for a substantial share of civil cases in Nigerian courts, which tells you how often the assumption fails.
Here is what actually happens, and why it is more complicated than almost anyone expects.
The first question: which law applies to you?
This is the part that surprises people. Nigeria does not have one succession law. It has several, running in parallel, and which one governs your estate depends primarily on how you married.
If you married under the Marriage Act — a statutory or “court” marriage — then statutory law applies to your estate, and customary law generally does not.
This was settled in the Supreme Court case of Salubi v Nwariaku. The deceased had married under the Marriage Act and left substantial property, along with two children by his wife and two born outside the marriage. His eldest son argued that as the deceased was an Urhobo chief who died intestate, the estate should be distributed under Urhobo customary law, which would have entitled the eldest son to inherit everything and distribute at his discretion.
The court rejected this. Because the deceased had married under the Marriage Act, he was no longer a person to whom customary law applied for this purpose, and the estate fell to be administered under statutory law.
If you married under customary law only — a traditional marriage without a Marriage Act ceremony — then customary law generally governs, and that law varies enormously by ethnic group.
If you are Muslim, Islamic law generally governs succession, with defined shares for specified relatives.
If you married under the Marriage Act but also have a customary marriage, or if your circumstances are mixed, the position can be genuinely contested — which is itself a reason to have a will.
Under statutory law: how it is divided
Where statutory law applies, the estate is distributed under the Administration of Estates Law of the relevant state.
In Salubi, the trial court held the widow entitled to one-third of the estate and the children to the remaining two-thirds.
The critical detail most families get wrong: the courts have held that children born outside the marriage are entitled to share equally with children born within it. In Salubi, the appellate court confirmed that the two children born out of wedlock were entitled in equal shares alongside the two children of the marriage and the widow.
That single point produces more shock and more litigation than any other aspect of Nigerian intestacy. A family that assumes the estate divides among the household discovers that a child they may not have known existed has an equal legal claim.
A will can change this. Intestacy cannot.
Under customary law: where it gets serious
Customary succession rules differ substantially across Nigeria, and some of them are severe.
In parts of the country, particularly in some northern and south-eastern traditions, the eldest son may take a dominant or exclusive share. Sons may receive considerably more than daughters. Widows may receive little or nothing — and under some customary practices, a widow’s position in her late husband’s family becomes precarious, with expectations about where she may live and what she may keep.
The legal position has improved. Nigerian courts have in recent years struck down customary rules that disinherited widows and female children, and the constitutional prohibition on discrimination has been applied in this area.
But there is a gap between the law and the ground. A right you have to litigate for is a right that costs money, years, and family relationships to enforce. The relatives occupying the property are not deterred by a constitutional principle. They are deterred by a document.
This is the single strongest practical argument for a will, and it applies most forcefully to families whose circumstances would otherwise fall under customary rules.
Letters of administration: the practical obstacle
Even where the legal entitlement is clear, the family cannot simply take possession. They must obtain letters of administration from the probate registry.
What this means in practice:
The process takes time — often many months, sometimes considerably longer where the estate is contested. During it, bank accounts are typically frozen. The family may have no access to funds while rent, school fees, and living costs continue.
And there is a limit on who can apply. Under section 24(1) of the Administration of Estates Law of Lagos State, the maximum number of persons who may apply for letters of administration is four.
That limit is itself a source of conflict. Where there are more potential beneficiaries than four — a widow, several children, children from another relationship — the question of which four apply becomes a fight before the distribution fight has even begun. Nigerian law reports contain many cases of exactly this dispute.
The court, in granting administration, is required to have regard to the rights of all persons interested in the estate. But “having regard to” is a long way from a family being able to pay the school fees in December.
What this looks like in a real family
Put together, the intestacy scenario runs roughly like this.
A man dies. The family cannot immediately access his accounts. Nobody is certain which banks held what, because he handled the finances. The property documents are somewhere but nobody knows where.
Relatives arrive. Somebody asserts a customary claim. If the marriage was customary rather than statutory, that claim may have force. If it was statutory, the claim is weaker but still has to be resisted, which means a lawyer and time.
A child nobody in the household knew about may appear, with an equal legal entitlement.
Four people apply for letters of administration and the other beneficiaries object to the selection. Months pass. The widow is living on savings, or on help from her own family, or on nothing.
Eventually the estate is distributed — reduced by legal costs, by the deterioration of property left unmanaged, and by relationships that will not recover.
Every part of that is preventable by a document that costs a fraction of a year’s school fees.
What a will actually fixes
It removes the choice-of-law fight. A valid will governs the distribution regardless of which customary tradition your relatives would prefer to invoke.
It lets you decide the shares. Rather than accepting a one-third/two-thirds split or whatever custom dictates, you determine who receives what.
It names your executor. Rather than four people fighting over who administers the estate, you appoint someone you trust.
It speeds everything up. Probate of a valid will is substantially faster and cheaper than obtaining letters of administration for a contested intestate estate.
It settles the question of children you have not told your household about. Whatever your situation, deciding it yourself in a document is considerably better than your family discovering it in a courtroom.
It protects your widow. This is the core of it. A will is the most effective instrument available for ensuring that the woman who built the life with you is not required to litigate for a share of it.
What to do, in order
1. Determine which law applies to you. Did you marry under the Marriage Act, under customary law, or both? Most people are unsure, and it is the foundational question. Find your marriage certificate.
2. Write the location list. One page: every bank, every property document and where it physically sits, every policy, every asset. This alone prevents a large share of the practical difficulty, and it takes an hour.
3. Check your named beneficiaries. Pension, life insurance, any account with a nomination. These often pass outside the estate entirely and can override what a will says. Fifteen minutes.
4. Make the will. Use a solicitor — homemade wills are the largest single source of probate disputes because small technical errors invalidate them completely. Remember that witnesses must not be beneficiaries or married to beneficiaries.
5. Deposit it properly and tell at least two people where it is.
6. Consider life insurance. Proceeds paid to a named beneficiary largely bypass the probate delay, which means your family has cash in the months when everything else is locked.
The conversation to have this week
If you are married, ask your spouse one question: if I died tomorrow, would you know where everything is, and would you be able to prove what is yours?
If the answer is no, you now know what this weekend is for.
The paperwork is not romantic. But the widow who is not fighting relatives over land, whose children’s fees are covered, who knew exactly where the documents were — she experiences it as one of the most loving things her husband ever did.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Nigerian succession law varies significantly by state, by the type of marriage contracted, and by applicable customary or Islamic law, and it continues to develop through case law. Consult a qualified Nigerian solicitor about your own circumstances before making any decisions.
