Digital Personhood After Death: Data, Bank Apps, and the Limits of Customary Law on Intangible Assets in Yorubaland
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: When a Yoruba elder dies in 2026, his estate no longer consists only of land and house. It includes Bank Verification Number (BVN)-linked bank accounts, mobile money wallets, WhatsApp Business accounts, cryptocurrency, and email. This article examines the collision between Yoruba customary inheritance and digital assets. Based on 55 semi-structured interviews, 18 case studies of "digital estates," and 42 observed family meetings between 2021 and 2025, this paper argues that customary law has no conceptual or procedural framework for intangible property. This study adopts a mixed-methods ethnographic-doctrinal approach, with thematic coding in NVivo 14 and descriptive statistical analysis of asset distribution and access outcomes. Three problems emerged. First, epistemic: family elders do not recognise "password" or "BVN" (Bank Verification Number) as inheritable. Second, procedural: banks demand letters of administration under the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020, while families rely on oral recognition. Third, jurisdictional: digital assets exist on servers in developed countries, beyond the reach of customary tribunals. Building on work on literacy capture (Adewale, 2026a) and the death of oral archives (Adewale, 2026b), the article shows that digitalisation accelerates the marginalisation of customary law. I propose a "Digital Inheritance Protocol" requiring testators to lodge access keys with a neutral third party and for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to recognise family minutes as valid proof for small-value accounts. Without this, digital wealth will bypass kinship entirely and flow to the state or corporations.
Author: ADEGBEMI ATANDA ADEWALE
Institution: Wesley University
Language: English
Topic: Family and Matrimonial Law
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220980248