The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, has raised alarm over the number of children entering Nigeria’s custodial and remand facilities annually, revealing that about 26,000 children are taken into custody every year.
The minister said 74 per cent of the affected children were held in pre-trial detention, while 68 per cent had no access to a lawyer from their first contact with the justice system.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim disclosed this during a keynote address at the 66th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where she called for urgent reforms to strengthen Nigeria’s child justice system.
“About 26,000 children enter custodial and remand facilities every single year in Nigeria. Over 122,000 in five years,” the minister said.
“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 statistics exposed fundamental weaknesses in the country’s justice system, particularly in the areas of early legal representation, detention and the implementation of diversion programmes for children accused of offences.
“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,” she said.
The minister urged the NBA and other justice-sector stakeholders to strengthen mechanisms that would ensure children in conflict with the law receive legal representation immediately after they are taken into custody.
She proposed the introduction of Duty Solicitor Schemes across NBA branches nationwide to guarantee that children have access to lawyers within 24 hours of being detained.
“Our difficulty is not the absence of a statutory hook. It is the absence of a framework around it,” she said, referring to the provisions of the Child Rights Act on diversion.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim said Nigeria already had laws designed to protect children, but weak implementation had continued to deny many minors the protection guaranteed under existing legislation.
“The honest question this conference must answer is not whether the law exists. It is why a child in many parts of this country still cannot feel its protection,” she said.
According to her, the justice process often begins to fail within the first 48 hours after a child’s arrest.
She identified inadequate birth registration, exclusion from school, family breakdown, child marriage and weak social welfare systems as some of the factors that could increase children’s vulnerability and bring them into conflict with the law.
The minister also expressed concern over inadequate birth registration, warning that children whose ages could not be properly established could be exposed to adult justice processes.
She described Nigeria’s age of criminal responsibility, currently set at seven, as “indefensible in 2026” and called for a review.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim further advocated the establishment of substantive Family Courts, mobile Family and Children’s Courts for underserved communities and a legal presumption of minority where a child’s age could not immediately be confirmed.
She also called for improved training for police officers, prosecutors and lawyers handling cases involving children.
“Only the Bar can put a lawyer beside a child in a police station tonight,” the minister said.
The call for reforms comes amid growing concerns over the number of children and young people deprived of liberty in Nigeria. Previous government assessments have similarly put the annual number at about 26,000, while a national assessment also identified lack of legal representation and delays in the justice system as major challenges facing children and young adults in custody.
The Nigerian Correctional Service, in its latest available statistics, reported that 53,670 of the country’s 82,195 inmates were awaiting trial as of June 29, 2026, highlighting the broader challenge of prolonged pre-trial detention within the justice system.
At the NBA conference, Ebonyi State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ben Odoh, also said Nigeria’s challenge was no longer simply the absence of laws but difficulties in translating statutory protections into practical realities.
“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.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim proposed a Child Justice Compact between the Ministry of Women Affairs and the NBA to promote joint monitoring and measurable targets on legal representation, diversion and the functioning of Family Courts.
“Those are limits we can pass, and we can begin this week,” she said.
