A critical look at the Nigerian Legislative Act and Development of the Nigerian Child.

As Nigeria became a signatory to Child's Rights Convention and African Children's Charter in 2003, all hope seems to be better for the Nigerian child, who had been repeatedly used as an object and forced to take action (child marriage and child betrothal), contrary to best international practice and humanity. Nigeria's Legislative House of Assemblies of states is supposed to adopt these declarations as an operative law to protect the rights of children in their respective states. However, because of religious, ethnicity, and cultural diversities, this act is yet to be localised in some states. Specifically, only twentyfive states out of the thirty-six states and eleven out of the nineteen states have localised the child act in their states. This invariably has implications for the development of children in Nigeria. Some of the implications include forced child marriage, child labour, and a large percentage of out-of-school children. While studies have investigated the problems faced by children in terms of the non-localization of the child act by some states in Nigeria, evidence is scant on the rationale for the refusal of some state houses of assemblies to adopt and legislate the child act for the protection of the Nigerian child. Given this, the paper examines the role of the legislative act in the development of the Nigerian Child. It adopts a qualitative research design that sourced data through the secondary method. The paper's findings indicated that too much snug with religion, ethnicity and cultural diversities stampeded the Nigerian parliament from the full implementation of the child rights act in Nigeria. The results indicated that poor implementation of the child rights act had repeatedly cut back the progressive development of Nigerian children and Nigeria. The paper concludes that the localisation of the child act in all the states is a noble means through which the Nigerian child and Nigeria can achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]