Two siblings, Amina Isyaku Ibrahim and Ahmed Isyaku Ibrahim have through their Lawyer filed a case at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, where they are challenging religious and gender-based discrimination in the administration of their late father’s estate, NIIMA (Carpet) Manufacturing Limited.
The applicants in suit number CV/4235/25 filed through their Counsel, international human rights lawyer, Dr. Charles Adeogun‑Phillips, SAN, the duo petitioned Musa Wen Ibrahim and HRH Lawal Musa Nagogo, who are respondent in the suit over discrimination based on religion and gender in the handling of their late father Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim’s estate.
In Amina Isyaku Ibrahim and Ahmed Isyaku Ibrahim
The late Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, a distinguished businessman, philanthropist, and political elder, was a practising Muslim who married Mrs Charlotte Jamila Ibrahim, a practising Christian, in Monrovia, Liberia, under statutory law in 1974. Their union embodied harmony and mutual respect.
Their children, Amina and Ahmed, were lovingly raised in a harmonious inter-faith household, celebrating both Christian and Muslim traditions as part of one inclusive family.
Following their father’s death in August 2025, the Applicants claim they were excluded from inheritance discussions on account of their Christian faith, and that in Amina’s case, her gender was cited as a further basis for exclusion.
Their claim invokes Sections 38 and 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999, as amended), guaranteeing freedom of religion and protection from discrimination, and Articles 2 and 3 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004).
They further allege that ₦800 million realised from the sale of a 5.44‑hectare factory property was misappropriated without lawful probate authority under the guise of Islamic personal law.
Her petition asks the Court to declare that exclusion from inheritance on religious grounds contravenes those same guarantees — making the suit a tangible test of whether constitutional promises of liberty and equality hold true in practice at family and customary levels.
The petition further alleged that the respondents, neither of whom are next of kin nor members of the family, began administering the estate of Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim without lawful authority, letters of administration had been granted not yet granted, and when no probate process had been concluded either.
