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26,000 Nigerian children enter custodial facilities yearly without lawyers – Minister

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2 days ago

August 28, 2026

Faith Okoye

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The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Thursday, said about 26,000 children enter custodial and remand facilities in Nigeria 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.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim stated this in a keynote address at the 66th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

The conference, running from 21 to 28 August 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. 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.”

She said the three figures point to a single, connected failure adding: “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 toward 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.

Ben Odoh, Ebonyi state’s attorney-general and commissioner for justice, 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. (Premium Times)