Nigeria: Why the Child's Rights Act Still Doesn't Apply Throughout Nigeria

analysis

Nigeria adopted the Child's Rights Act in 2003, giving legal consent to both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The country's constitution states that for an international law to take effect, Nigeria's legislature must create a national version.

But as Nigeria operates a federal system of government, the law does not automatically become applicable in all of its 36 states. In terms of the constitution, children's issues are the preserve of the constituent states. Each state legislature must make the national law applicable within its territory. And only 25 of the 36 states in Nigeria have localised the Child's Rights Act.

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