Federalism, Human Rights, and the Fragmentation of Protection Standards Across Nigerian States

This doctoral research investigates the relationship between Nigerian federalism and the fragmentation of human rights protection standards across states, developing an original theoretical framework for understanding how federal structures shape, enable, and constrain the domestic realization of internationally recognized human rights. Nigeria's 36-state federal structure has produced significant inter-state variation in child rights domestication, criminal justice administration, Sharia law application in Northern states, and social service provision, raising fundamental questions about the consistency and universality of human rights within a federation. The research draws on comparative federalism theory, Ran Hirschl's constitutional comparative methodology, and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' framework for assessing state party compliance in federal systems. A mixed theoretical-empirical methodology is employed, combining doctrinal analysis of state-level human rights legislation across all six geopolitical zones with a structured comparative assessment of child marriage rates, criminal justice outcomes, and social protection coverage as proxy indicators of rights realization. The theoretical framework advanced is the Federal Human Rights Coherence Model, which identifies the constitutional, fiscal, and institutional conditions under which federalism can coexist with universal minimum human rights standards. The research identifies the absence of constitutional floor standards for human rights across states, inadequate federal oversight of state-level human rights compliance, and revenue allocation distortions as primary drivers of fragmentation. An original constitutional reform model is proposed to establish a Federal Human Rights Minimum Standards Act. Keywords: federalism, human rights fragmentation, Nigerian states, constitutional reform, minimum standards.