Nigeria set to dump 269 outdated laws after 22 years
By Paul Dada
The Federal Government says it has identified 269 obsolete, spent or repealed laws for removal from the proposed 2025 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria following a comprehensive review of existing legislation.
Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja while receiving the final report of the committee responsible for reviewing and consolidating federal laws.
Fagbemi said the committee examined 932 federal enactments and 731 subsidiary legislations, recommending 663 enactments and their relevant subsidiary legislation for inclusion in the revised edition.
He described the exercise as a major step towards modernising Nigeria’s legal framework, noting that the last official consolidation of federal laws took place in 2004.
According to him more than two decades of legislative, constitutional, institutional and technological developments had made another comprehensive review necessary.
“Several new enactments and amendments have accumulated over this period, making a comprehensive review imperative to ensure that our body of Federal laws remains coherent, current, accessible and responsive to the needs of our country,” he said.
The committee was established on October 24, 2024, with Olawale Fapohunda (SAN) as chairman. Its responsibilities included identifying outdated legislation, resolving inconsistencies and eliminating overlapping provisions.
Fagbemi said the report would be forwarded to President Bola Tinubu for transmission to the National Assembly for consideration.
He warned that Nigeria must avoid another prolonged delay in updating its laws.
“The gap of more than twenty years between the last consolidation and the present exercise should not be repeated. We must strengthen our capacity to track new enactments, amendments and subsidiary legislation so that our laws remain current and responsive to emerging developments,” he said.
Earlier, Fapohunda said the committee had completed its assignment after more than two years of reviewing and harmonising federal legislation.
He explained that its work went beyond compiling existing statutes to examining their relevance and identifying areas requiring legislative intervention.
“Our primary objective was clear; to purge obsolete and redundant statutes, resolve conflicting provisions, and seamlessly integrate contemporary socio-economic and technological realities into our national legal framework,” he said.
Fapohunda also highlighted problems requiring attention, including outdated statutory language, inconsistent provisions, cumbersome legal references and fines that no longer reflected current economic realities.
He particularly expressed concern that some statutory penalties remained as low as N10 or N50.
“The need to review certain statutory fines and fees which have not kept pace with prevailing economic realities, some as low as ten or fifty Naira,” he said.
The committee recommended a centralised digital repository for federal laws to improve public access and make future updates easier.
Fapohunda said the absence of an accessible database had made the review exercise particularly difficult.
“Previously, the absence of a consolidated, easily accessible reference hub for sourcing federal statutes proved to be a significant impediment, turning the committee’s mandate into a truly Herculean task,” he said.
The committee also proposed a permanent mechanism for reviewing legislation regularly and urged the Attorney General to advise ministries, departments and agencies on proper procedures for updating their enabling laws and subsidiary regulations.
It subsequently submitted its final report and draft copies of the 20-volume 2025 Laws of the Federation to Fagbemi.