Nigeria signed the Convention against Torture on 28 July 1988 and ratified it on 28 June 2001, thirteen years later. It has not accepted the individual complaint procedure. When the Committee against Torture came to examine Nigeria in 2021, Nigeria had not filed a report, and the Committee proceeded without one.
Why this page exists
Nigeria is one of the countries people in the register hold protection against. It does not appear in the States Engaging in Refoulement project and has no arrangement with the United States to receive people.
Nigeria is also listed in the Third-Country Removals project, on The Countries page, flagged as a destination country where torture is documented.
Since 27 October 2026 Third Country Deportation Watch has stated that “Some countries, such as Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, have declined to sign agreements with the United States”, citing reporting by the Washington Post. Source: Third Country Deportation Watch, overview, read 5 November 2026
What Nigeria has accepted
The depositary record shows signature on 28 July 1988 and ratification on 28 June 2001. Nigeria has made no declaration under article 22, so an individual cannot bring a complaint about Nigeria to the Committee against Torture.
What the Committee against Torture found, without a report
The Committee adopted its observations on 26 November 2021, at its seventy-second session. The document is not the usual one. It is headed concluding observations in the absence of the initial report of Nigeria, and carries the symbol CAT/C/NGA/COAR/1 rather than the ordinary CO form. Nigeria had been a party for twenty years and had filed nothing.
Under the heading on allegations of torture, ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and excessive use of force, at paragraph 13, the Committee recorded:
“The Committee is deeply concerned at allegations of gross misconduct by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force.”
On impunity, at paragraph 33, it recorded that it was “deeply concerned at the lack of accountability, due to the limited number of disciplinary measures and criminal prosecutions reportedly carried out, which contributes to an environment of impunity”.
A second-round review has not yet taken place. A list of issues prior to reporting, CAT/C/NGA/QPR/2, was issued on 28 November 2025.
Nigerians sent to third countries
The United States has sent Nigerians to Ghana, which, Third Country Deportation Watch records, agreed in its diplomatic note to receive West African nationals, Nigeria among them. Human Rights Watch records nationals of Nigeria on the flights of 5 September and 7 November 2025, and ICE data record Nigerians on flights of 11 September 2025 and 31 July 2026; Third Country Deportation Watch records people from Nigeria among six sent on 12 October 2026. Sources: HRW, To Scare People, 8 October 2026, pp. 64 to 65 · Third Country Deportation Watch, Ghana
Ghana has sent many of them on to Nigeria. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants records that after the first flight President John Dramani Mahama “stated that the Nigerian individuals were already returned to their country by bus.” Third Country Deportation Watch reports that Ghanaian authorities drove a Nigerian woman who held protection against return to Nigeria under the Convention to the Ghana-Togo border and paid a taxi driver to take her on to Nigeria, and that after the flight of July 2026 they “deported the Nigerians to Nigeria within 24 hours of arrival.” Human Rights First reports that a Nigerian man with withholding of removal, sent to Ghana on a flight in September 2025, told a United States officer that he feared for his life, and that the officer “told him that he didn’t care and that they would be returned to their countries of origin.” Sources: USCRI tracker, Ghana entry · Third Country Deportation Watch, Ghana · Human Rights First, 9 October 2026, p. 23
A federal court has ordered one man brought back. In Osahon v. Mullin the Central District of California recorded that a Nigerian man whose deferral of removal “[d]efers removal only to Nigeria” was detained at an ICE appointment in May 2026 and flown to Ghana, and that Ghanaian officials took the group by bus to the border and then into Togo “on foot, through the bush”, where the escorting Ghanaian officer “instructed the driver to carry the group to Lagos, Nigeria”. He refused, and was left “at the roadside of Togo, without documents, lawful status, or any means of returning to the United States.” The court granted a temporary restraining order on 28 August 2026 and a preliminary injunction on 10 September requiring the government to facilitate his return, and on 9 October ordered that his parole be kept valid “through at least October 30, 2026” while his journey from Lomé to Los Angeles was arranged. Whether he has returned has not been reported in the sources read. Sources: Osahon v. Mullin, C.D. Cal., ECF 12, 28 August 2026 · ECF 19, 10 September 2026 · ECF 60, 9 October 2026
Elsewhere, Human Rights Watch records one person from Nigeria among nine people sent to Sierra Leone on 20 May 2026, and Confidencial, analysing Deportation Data Project records, counts five Nigerians among 116 foreign nationals the United States deported to Nicaragua between January 2025 and June 2026. Sources: HRW, To Scare People, 8 October 2026, p. 72 · Confidencial, 29 June 2026
What the register records
D.A. v. Noem, District Court for the District of Columbia, 15 September 2025. Five citizens of Nigeria and The Gambia, each of whom had been granted withholding of removal or deferral of removal after an immigration judge found they were more likely than not to face persecution, torture or death at home, were woken in the middle of the night on 5 September 2025 at an immigration detention facility, shackled, and put aboard a United States military cargo plane bound for Ghana. They were not allowed to notify family or counsel.
The entry is in the register of court decisions. What happened to the five after they reached Ghana is recorded on the Ghana page.
Ojukwu v. Lyons, Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 9 October 2026. A Nigerian woman granted withholding of removal to Nigeria in 2013 was detained when she reported to immigration authorities on 21 September 2026, and the government planned to remove her to Ghana on 11 October. The court refused to stay her removal pending appeal, holding that her claims were “squarely controlled” by the Supreme Court’s stays in the D.V.D. class action. The Ghana page sets the order beside the record of what Ghana did with the people sent there in September 2025.
Sources
Treaty status: United Nations Treaty Collection, depositary record for the Convention against Torture, chapter IV-9, read 14 September 2026.
Committee against Torture, concluding observations in the absence of the initial report of Nigeria, CAT/C/NGA/COAR/1, adopted 26 November 2021: docs.un.org.
Nigerians sent to third countries: Human Rights Watch, To Scare People, 8 October 2026, pages 64 to 72; Human Rights First, In the Middle of the Night, They Come and Get You, 9 October 2026, page 23; Third Country Deportation Watch, Ghana and overview, and the USCRI tracker, read 5 November 2026; Confidencial, 29 June 2026. Osahon v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-09121 (C.D. Cal.), orders of 28 August, 10 September and 9 October 2026.