The loopholes in Nigeria’s criminal justice system came to the front burner of national discourse, once again, following a startling revelation by the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim.
Citing a gory statistics, the minister said that about 26,000 children enter custodial and remand facilities across the country every year, with 74 per cent held in pre-trial detention and 68 per cent having no lawyer from their first contact with the justice system.
Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim made the disclosure in a keynote address at the just-concluded 66th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
The conference, which held from August 21 to 28, under the theme “Beyond Limits,” drew thousands of lawyers, judges, and policymakers to the Yakubu Gowon Stadium for a week of professional and policy discussions.
The minister’s address came during a plenary session on justice for children, where government officials and child-protection advocates examined how Nigeria can implement diversion policies for children in conflict with the law.
“I want this conference to adopt these numbers as its baseline,” Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim said. “About 26,000 children enter custodial and remand facilities every single year in Nigeria, over 122,000 in five years. Nearly 74 per cent wait in pre-trial detention without a timely hearing opportunity, and some 68 per cent have no lawyer from the first contact.”
On the three figures which point to a single, connected failure, she said, “The 68 per cent shows that the system breaks down before a child is even charged. The 74 per cent shows that remand has become the default response rather than the exception. And the 26,000 shows that diversion, as currently applied, is not working.”
The plenary’s central question was how Nigeria can strengthen and enforce prosecutorial policies that steer children accused of offences away from formal criminal proceedings and towards rehabilitation and community-based measures.
That framework is backed by the Child Rights Act and the 2024 Prosecution Guidelines, both of which favour alternatives to prosecution for less serious offences.
The Attorney-general and Commissioner for Justice Ebonyi State, Ben Odoh, who chairs the body of state attorneys-general, said the problem is no longer a lack of legal provisions but a failure to apply them.
“The challenge we have is that while the law provides for statutory rights, converting and translating these rights into a live reality remains difficult,” he said.
He noted that prosecution should be a last resort in suitable non-serious cases. Section 209 of the Child Rights Act already provides five diversion measures: supervision, guidance, compensation, reintegration, and reconciliation.
He added that if states adopt formal diversion policies, police, prosecutors handling children’s cases, and prosecutors from the ministries of justice could work from a shared framework rather than acting independently.
Odoh called on every state attorney-general to establish a prosecutorial policy on diversion. He also pledged to set up a specialised child prosecution unit in Ebonyi State, to work alongside the police unit responsible for prosecuting children.
UNICEF’s Chief of Child Protection, Natalie Macaulay, told the plenary that Nigeria needs to move past simply having laws on the books and start ensuring they change children’s lives.
“We have to go beyond response to prevention. Beyond laws on paper to change lives instead. Beyond the courtrooms to the police stations, the communities, and the places where the children first encounter the justice system,” she said.
Ms Macaulay called for diversion, rehabilitation, and reintegration to replace detention as the default response for children in conflict with the law.
It is instructive that the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, had disclosed that 93 per cent of inmates in Nigeria’s custodial facilities are being held for state offences, while between 30 and 50 per cent of them may be serving time for offences that do not warrant imprisonment.
Tunji-Ojo made the disclosure during the Regional Conference on the Classification of Prisoners and the Use of Technology in Prisons in Africa on July 22, 2026, in Abuja, which was jointly organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the African Correctional Services Association (ACSA).
Against this backdrop, Blueprint calls on the relevant stakeholders, including the ministries of justice, the NBA, the legislature, among others, to, as a matter of utmost urgency, address the shrewdness in the application of laws governing the nation’s penal system. A situation where minors are exposed to adult justice processes is as reprehensible as it is indefensible.
The legal framework meant to protect minors, particularly Section 209 of the Child’s Right Act, must be activated and judiciously enforced. The dormancy of this piece of legislation accounts, to a large extent, for the ends of justice denied minors across the country.
The media, as the watchdog of society, also has a vital role to play in this regard. It must put the relevant authorities on their toes towards ensuring that justice is not only done but is also seen to be done to all and sundry.
