Criminal responsibility has been defined in section 1 of the Criminal Code Act as the liability for punishment for an offense. It simply means the culpability of an individual.
Under Nigerian law, a child or a minor could or could not be criminally liable for a crime he committed depending on the circumstances or facts of the case.
According to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a minor is a person who is below the age of eighteen (18). An adult under the Nigerian constitution is a person who has attained the age of 18, ie the age of majority. This is the provisions of section 29 of the constitution and to its effect, any person who is below the age of 18 is still deemed to be a minor. At the age of 18, you become an adult in Nigeria and can therefore begin to enjoy every right and liberty that accrues to an adult citizen, on the same vein, you will be held liable for your own offense; you can be issued with a driver’s license, you can vote during the election, you can be allowed to own a landed property in your own name and you sue and be sued in your own capacity etc.
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However, the Criminal Code Act for the sake of being criminally culpable for offenses took another view of who a minor is in Nigeria. While acknowledging the fact that a person who is below the age of 18 is not yet an adult as provided in section 29 of the constitution, such a person who is below the age of 18 can still be held to be criminally liable for any offense he commits.
According to section 30 of the criminal code act, a person will be criminally culpable, once such a person is twelve (12) years and above. A person who is twelve years and above will be presumed to have grown enough to form the mental capacity to distinguish what is right from what is wrong. A person who is below the age of twelve but above the age of seven may be held criminally liable for the offense he or she committed but the prosecutor will need to prove to the court that at the time of the offender committing such offense he or she knows what they are doing. A child who is below the age of seven will not be held criminally liable for any criminal offenses because it is presumed in law that the child who is below the age of seven has not developed the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong.
Also, according to the provisions of section 30 of the criminal code act, a boy child under the age of twelve years is presumed to be incapable of having carnal knowledge, this is to say that a boy child under the age of twelve cannot be held liable for sexual related offenses.
In the case of NPF v OMOTOSHO (2018) LPELR – 4577 8 (CA) the court while adopting the fact that a child may not be held culpable for offenses held that “in both civil and criminal law, the legal capacity/criminal responsibility of a minor is diminished and can never equate to that of an adult by virtue of the mental capacity and level of maturity” but in the case of YUSUF MUSA AND THE STATE in 2022 the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of both the Jigawa state high court and the judgment of the court of appeal which held that the accused, an eleven years old minor who struck a machete on a person multiples times thereby killing the deceased is guilty of culpable homicide despite the fact that he is less than twelve years old.
immaturity or being a minor is actually a strong and valid defense in criminal jurisprudence all over the world and it has gotten a lot of folks off the hook who used being a minor as a defense in a plethora of cases. Other valid defenses under the criminal jurisprudence aside from immaturity include; mistake, Bona fide claim of right, Intoxication or being drunk, Insanity or mental incapacitation and Provocation.