Wills Of Discord

Prominent families in Nigeria are increasingly finding it difficult administering wills left behind by their parents

In a bid to avoid any disagreement that would paint his family in bad light when he was gone, popular human rights lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, prepared his will in a way he thought was satisfactory enough and warned his children to resolve any grey areas in the document amicably without recourse to the court. This, he said, would make him rest in peace.

He may not be resting in peace he so much desired, as his first son, Mohammed, is battling it out with the First Trustees Nigeria Limited, appointed by his late father to manage some of his assets. His grouse concerns the company’s failure to recognise him as the Executive Chairman of his father’s Nigerian Law Publications Limited, as well as the decision by the trustees to freeze the accounts of some of the late lawyer’s companies, including the Book Industries Nigeria Limited and the Gani Fawehinmi Chambers, without duly informing him.

Though the case was referred to an Arbitration panel by Justice James Tsoho of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos for proper handling, Mohammed has vowed to appeal the decision of the court to stay proceedings in the case until the Arbitration panel gives its ruling.

The legal brawl between Mohammed Fawehinmi  and his father’s trustees could only be perceived as minor when compared with the crabby situation that exists among some of the children of the late Chief Rotimi Williams, a man who cannot be forgotten in the history of the legal profession in Nigeria.

He was earlier thought to have died without a will and his children had agreed on a sharing formula, only for them to later discover there was a will. But at this stage it was late to work with any legal document as two of his children, Folarin and Tokunbo, rushed to court asking it to stay proceedings on the execution of the will since the family had agreed to go by way of arbitration. This happened while Oladipupo and Kayode, their brothers, sought a ruling of the court to put the will forward as a legal document.

Even though Justice Joseph Oyewole of the Lagos High Court has ruled that the court cannot stay proceedings on the will, the children have remained at daggers-drawn seven years after their father passed on.

While Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was alive, he must have anticipated what could happen in his family in relation to his wealth and how best to share it. In his will, the acclaimed winner of Nigeria’s 12 June 1993 presidential election gave a condition for the eligibility of any of his 113 children to partake in the sharing of his property. This was that they must undergo a DNA test. The result of the test showed that Abiola was actually not the father of 25 of the children given to him by his wives. The wives, therefore, lost out in the will, which has not been executed 14 years after his death.

Festus Okotie-Eboh is remembered as the most flamboyant minister in the immediate post-independence government of Nigeria. Forty six years after his death in January 1966 which resulted from a military coup, the love that once existed within his family remains sour over two wills the former Minister of Finance prepared, in 1947 and in 1961. His wife and some of his children dragged one another to court contesting the authenticity of the documents.

When Okotie-Eboh died, his children were not immediately aware that he had prepared the wills. They had written to the defunct Bendel State High Court to enable them administer their father’s property when the wills surfaced, prompting a disagreement among the children and resulting in legal tussles. The names of the major actors in the case were listed as Mrs. Alero Jadesimi, his eldest daughter; the late politician’s widow, Mrs. Victoria Okotie-Eboh; another daughter, Mrs. C.R Akele and their step-brother, Mr. John Okotie-Eboh.

The case lingered till it was resolved by the Supreme Court which gave credence to the one prepared in 1947.

The Emeka Ojukwu will saga brings to mind the conflicts that have engulfed other prominent families in the country concerning either the best way to execute the will left behind by their fathers or fierce quarrels over the contents, yet it will not be the last.

—Eromosele Ebhomele