In Nigeria, no one truly owns land outright. Under the Land Use Act, all land is technically vested in state governors, who can revoke occupancy rights at any time. For women, the situation is even harsher: customary laws in many regions trace land ownership through the male line, often leaving widows and daughters excluded from family land that may have taken generations and their labour to build.


Why it Matters

The Women, Business and the Law 2026 report highlights how far Nigeria is from delivering on women’s legal rights. Its legal framework index scores 51.1, reflecting weak land laws on paper. The supportive framework score of 49 reveals the deeper problem: registries that aren’t digitised, legal aid that most women can’t reach, and institutions that can’t convert rights into reality. Enforcement is the most critical failure, scoring just 34.3.

Without land as collateral, women are locked out of credit. Without credit, they cannot scale their businesses or invest in productivity. Research across economies confirms that when women’s legal rights improve, economies grow and GDP follows.

State of Play

  • Nationally, only 8.2% of women aged 20-49 solely own land, against 34.2% of men, making Nigeria one of the most unequal land ownership environments in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Nigerian women produce 70% of the nation’s food but barely own the land it is grown on.
  • 42% of Nigerian widows face disinheritance under customary law, which means losing access to land.
  • In Northern Nigeria, Islamic law guarantees women a specific share of family land as inheritance. However, in non-Islamic Northern regions there are no such guarantees.
  • South-Eastern Nigeria has the country’s lowest rate of female land ownership due to discriminatory Igbo customary law against women’s inheritance. While recent supreme court cases have challenged this, discriminatory land customs persist, showing a gap between legal victory and practical change.
  • Legally owning land in Nigeria requires a certificate of occupancy, a procedure many find difficult to navigate. Lawyers who could help women are often too expensive or unavailable.
  • Most women never reach a courtroom to challenge discriminatory inheritance customs. The cost, distance, and social risk are the major reasons why.

A title deed is the entry point to collateral, credit, and economic mobility. Until systems exist to put land in Nigerian women’s names, that growth remains out of reach.

Author, Sharimam Kwemum