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VOL. 5, ISSUE 3 (2023)
Nationwide application of the Nigerian child’s rights act, 2003: Constitutional thoughts and possibilities
Authors
Kolawole Kazeem Oyeyemi
Abstract
The Nigerian Constitution empowers each of the component states of the federation to make laws, i.e., federal
government makes laws on all matters in the exclusive lists and shares
law-making with the state on the concurrent list. Children’s rights are neither
listed under the exclusive list nor the concurrent list.
Precisely two decades after the National Assembly enactment of the Nigerian
Child’s rights Act, 2003, not all the 36 states in Nigeria have adopted the Child’s
rights Act, 2003 into their state legislation. More so, states of the
federation that have adopted children’s rights do so at their own discretion. This
creates a lack of uniformity in terms of the provisions of specific and
important children’s rights enacted by several states which have adopted the
Act in their jurisdictions. The foregoing justifies the assertion that national
application of Nigerian Child’s Rights Act, 2003 (which domesticated the United
Nation Convention on the Rights of Child (UNCRC)) is fundamental to the uniform
realisation of children’s rights in Nigeria. The basic thesis of this paper is
that the nationwide application of Nigerian Child’s Rights Act, 2003 is achievable
by determining the actual interpretation of the combined provisions of Item 67
and 68 of part I, 2nd schedule to the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria which
empowers the National Assembly to make law on any matter incidental and
supplementary to any matter mentioned elsewhere in the list.
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Pages:144-147
How to cite this article:
Kolawole Kazeem Oyeyemi "Nationwide application of the Nigerian child’s rights act, 2003: Constitutional thoughts and possibilities". International Journal of Law, Policy and Social Review, Vol 5, Issue 3, 2023, Pages 144-147
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