Abstract
This paper reviews the legislative framework on statutory guardianship in Nigerian. The Child Rights Act regulates statutory guardianship and other matters that concern the protection and rights of children in Nigeria. Guardianship is a process that grants legal authority to a person with capacity to care for another’s person or property especially because of their infancy, incapacity or disability. This review focuses on how the appointment of a guardian for those children who may be in need of parental care is regulated under the Act. The review identifies the death or incapacitation of a child’s parents as the circumstance under which a guardian may be appointed to provide parental care for the child. This review questions the procedure for appointing a guardian under the Act, especially for a child who has no parents, and for whom the last surviving parent may not have by deed appointed a guardian. The Act provides for a person (who the Court may in fact by order be appointed the child’s guardian) to
make an application for a child in this category but the Act did not provide for the person(s) who have the power to make the application. Secondly, the Act did not provide for the qualification of those who may be appointed guardian(s) in this regard. The review argues that this gap in the Act puts the children in this category at risk, and suggests a review of the Act to address the gap.
Keywords: Child, Right, Nigeria, Statutory, Guardianship, Infancy