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.
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.
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.
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.