Introduction to enforcing child support orders
When a marriage or relationship breaks down, the most devastating consequences are often felt not by the adults involved, but by the children caught in the middle. A child’s right to financial support from both parents does not disappear because the parents no longer live together.[1] Yet, across Nigeria, countless children are denied this right every day, not because no law exists to protect them, but because many parents do not know how to use that law.
This article is a practical guide for any parent, guardian, or legal practitioner seeking to obtain a court order compelling a parent to financially provide for a child. Whether you were married in a registry, under customary law, or never married at all, there is a legal pathway available to you, although the specific route, and in some cases the specific court, will differ depending on the nature of your relationship and the state in which you reside. The key is knowing which door to knock on and how to knock correctly.
This guide covers four things: the legal frameworks that create the right to child maintenance in Nigeria, the practical steps for bringing a claim, how to make sure the order you obtain is precise enough to enforce, and what to do when a parent ignores the order once it is made.
The Legal Backbone: Section 70 of the Matrimonial Causes Act Enforcing Child Support Orders
For couples who contracted a statutory marriage, that is, a marriage conducted at a marriage registry or in a licensed place of worship under the Marriage Act, the Matrimonial Causes Act, Cap M7, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004, is the primary legal instrument for seeking maintenance.[2] Section 70 of the Act empowers the court to make orders for the maintenance of a party to the marriage and, just as importantly, the children of that marriage.
Under this provision, there are two main categories of orders you may seek. The first is Maintenance Pendente Lite, an interim order made while the divorce or legal separation proceedings are still pending. Its purpose is immediate and practical: it ensures the children continue to be fed and remain in school while the parents are engaged in litigation. The second is a Permanent Maintenance Order, the final order made at the conclusion of the suit, which provides a long term, enforceable financial schedule for the upbringing of the child.
A maintenance order for children under the Matrimonial Causes Act is generally available for children under the age of twenty one, although the court retains discretion to extend it beyond that age in special circumstances, for instance where the child is still in full time education or has a disability that prevents self sufficiency.[3]
Three limitations are worth understanding before you rely on this route.
First, Section 70 applies exclusively to statutory marriages. If you were married under customary or native law, under Islamic law, or you cohabited without any formal marriage, this section does not apply to you at all, and you must rely on a different legal framework entirely, discussed in the next part of this guide.[4]
Second, a claim for child maintenance under the Matrimonial Causes Act is an ancillary relief. This means it cannot stand on its own. It can only be brought as part of a substantive matrimonial cause, such as a petition for divorce, nullity, or judicial separation. You cannot simply approach the court for child maintenance under this Act while remaining married to the other parent and without any such petition before the court.[5]
Third, the court does not apply a fixed formula. Instead, in determining how much maintenance is appropriate, the court weighs the means, earning capacity, and conduct of the parties, along with all other relevant circumstances of the case.[6] There is no shortcut around presenting solid evidence.
When Section 70 Does Not Apply: The Child’s Rights Act
Not every parent seeking child support was married under the Marriage Act, and not every parent seeking child support is even currently involved in a matrimonial dispute. For those who were married solely under native law and custom, those married under Islamic law, those who were never formally married at all, or those who simply want to claim maintenance without filing for divorce, the applicable legal framework is the Child’s Rights Act (CRA) of 2003, or the corresponding state Child’s Rights Law in states that have domesticated it, such as the Lagos State Child’s Rights Law.[7]
The CRA imposes a clear and unambiguous legal duty on parents and guardians to maintain their children, in accordance with the extent of their means, regardless of the nature of the relationship between the parents.[8] Critically, the CRA also gives the child a personal right to enforce this duty in the Family Court, in appropriate circumstances.[9] This is a significant structural difference from the Matrimonial Causes Act: a claim under the CRA does not need to be attached to a divorce petition. It can be brought as an independent application at any time, by either parent on behalf of the child, or in some cases by the child personally through a next friend or guardian.
The Family Court, established under the CRA at both the High Court and Magistrate Court levels, is designed to be accessible and child focused.[10] Applications under the CRA are particularly powerful because they are available to a much broader category of claimants, including unmarried parents, parents married under customary or Islamic law, and extended family caregivers responsible for a child.
What If Your State Has Not Adopted the CRA? Enforcing Child Support Orders
Because child welfare legislation falls within the residual legislative powers of Nigeria’s states, the federal CRA only takes effect in a state once that state’s House of Assembly has domesticated it as state law. Most states, along with the Federal Capital Territory, have done so, but a number of states, concentrated mainly in the north, have not.[11] If you live in a state that has not adopted the CRA, you will generally need to proceed under the older Children and Young Persons Law applicable in that state, or, depending on the nature of your marriage, through the customary court or, where applicable, the Sharia court, applying the relevant native law and custom or the Islamic law principle of nafaqa, the duty of maintenance. The underlying obligation to maintain a child does not disappear in these states, but the procedural route to enforce it does differ, and you should consult a lawyer familiar with the practice of the courts in your specific state before filing.
How to Obtain the Order: The Step by Step Process
Knowing which law applies is only the first step. The more important question is how one actually commences the process. The following is a practical breakdown of the steps involved in obtaining a court order compelling child support.
Filing the Application Enforcing Child Support Orders
Your lawyer will commence the process by filing a Motion on Notice supported by an Affidavit of Means (under the Matrimonial Causes Act) or an equivalent originating application before the Family Court (under the Child’s Rights Act). The Affidavit of Means is perhaps the most important document at this stage. It is a sworn statement in which you detail not only your own financial circumstances, but also, and most critically, the specific and verifiable expenses of the child. Judges respond to evidence, not emotion. You should therefore attach school fee receipts, grocery bills, medical reports, rent or housing costs attributable to the child, and any other documents that concretely establish what it costs to raise your child.
Equally important is demonstrating the other parent’s capacity to pay. You are required to provide evidence, or at the very minimum a well founded assertion, that the parent against whom the order is sought has the financial means to contribute but is simply refusing to do so. Bank statements, payslips, evidence of a business, property records, or information about lifestyle and assets will all serve this purpose. Where direct evidence of income is unavailable, for instance because the other parent is self employed or deliberately underemployed, the court can still impute an earning capacity based on qualifications, work history, and visible standard of living.
What the Court Will Consider
Once the application is filed and the other party is served, the court will schedule a hearing. Whether the claim proceeds under the Matrimonial Causes Act or the Child’s Rights Act, the judge will weigh a similar set of factors before arriving at a figure. These include the income and assets of both parties, the earning capacity of each parent, even if one is currently unemployed, the conduct of the parties as it relates to the welfare of the children, the number of other children each parent is responsible for, and the standard of living the children were accustomed to before the separation or neglect began.[12]
The court’s overriding consideration, however, is the best interests of the child.[13] A skilled lawyer will frame the entire application around this principle, because it is the lens through which every other factor is assessed.
Ensuring the Order Is Specific and Detailed
One of the most common mistakes made in child maintenance applications is requesting a vague order. An order that simply says the Respondent shall pay a reasonable sum for the child’s upkeep is practically useless. It is too ambiguous to enforce and invites endless arguments about what is reasonable.
A properly drafted maintenance order must be precise in its terms. It should name specific amounts, specify what each payment is for, designate where the payment is to be made, for example directly to the school or to the custodial parent’s bank account, and set clear deadlines. It is also good practice to specify the currency of payment, how the amount will be reviewed if school fees or the cost of living increase, and what happens if a payment date falls on a weekend or public holiday. The following is an example of what a well crafted order might look like:
Example Order. “The Respondent shall pay the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand naira (N250,000) directly to Abot Montessori School on or before the first week of every school term, and eighty thousand naira (N80,000) monthly into the Applicant’s account, account number and bank to be specified, on or before the 5th day of each month, for the feeding and general maintenance of the child.”
This level of specificity is not merely a matter of good drafting practice. It is the foundation of enforceability. You cannot enforce what you cannot measure.
Making the Order Stick: Enforcement Mechanisms
Obtaining a court order is a significant achievement, but a court order is, at the moment it is made, merely a piece of paper backed by the authority of the state. Its real value lies entirely in its enforcement. If the parent against whom the order was made continues to ignore their financial obligations, Nigerian law provides several enforcement tools, governed primarily by the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, Cap S6, LFN 2004, and the Judgment (Enforcement) Rules made under it.[14] These tools can, and often should, be used in combination, escalating in severity as the defaulting parent continues to resist.
Garnishee Proceedings Enforcing Child Support Orders
The first and often most effective tool is garnishee proceedings. Here, the court issues an order directing a third party who holds the defaulting parent’s money, typically a bank, but it could also be an employer, to pay the amount owed directly to you, bypassing the defaulting parent entirely.[15] The process happens in two stages. The applicant first obtains a garnishee order nisi, a provisional order directing the garnishee, the bank or employer, to appear before the court and explain why it should not pay over the funds. If the garnishee fails to show sufficient cause, the order is made absolute, and the garnishee is then legally obliged to pay the judgment sum.[16] Because this mechanism operates at the level of the financial institution rather than the defaulting parent directly, the defaulting parent has little opportunity to frustrate it once it is set in motion, although the proceeding does require you to know, or be able to credibly identify, where the other parent banks or works.
Judgment Debtor Summons and Writ of Attachment
Where the defaulting parent’s bank details are not known, or the funds in a known account are insufficient, the next tool is a judgment debtor summons. This compels the defaulting parent to appear in court and be examined under oath about their income, assets, and ability to pay.[17] Following this examination, the court may make any of several orders: an order for payment of the debt in instalments, an order attaching and authorising the sale of the debtor’s movable property, and, if that proves insufficient, the debtor’s immovable property, or, in the most serious cases, an order committing the debtor to prison.[18]
Committal for Contempt Enforcing Child Support Orders
The most severe enforcement tool available is committal for contempt of court. Where a parent has persistently and deliberately refused to comply with a court order despite the availability of other enforcement mechanisms, the court may commit that parent to prison for disobeying its order.[19] Because committal touches on a person’s personal liberty, the procedure is strict. The applicant must first apply for the court registrar to issue and serve Form 48, a notice warning of the consequences of disobedience. If the defaulting parent still does not comply after that notice, the applicant applies for Form 49, which formally commences the committal proceeding, and the matter is heard much like a quasi criminal trial, with the standard of proof being beyond reasonable doubt rather than the ordinary civil standard.[20] This is understandably regarded as a last resort, but it is a real and available consequence, and Nigerian courts have shown an increasing willingness to invoke it where the evidence of deliberate evasion is clear.[21]
It is worth emphasising that these enforcement tools are cumulative, not mutually exclusive. A determined applicant may pursue garnishee proceedings first, and if the defaulting parent conceals or moves funds, proceed to a judgment debtor summons and writ of attachment, and ultimately to committal proceedings if all else fails. Each step adds pressure, and each step builds its own paper trail of non-compliance, which strengthens the case for the next, more severe, remedy.
Conclusion Enforcing Child Support Orders
A child’s right to financial support is not contingent on the state of the relationship between their parents. The law in Nigeria, whether through the Matrimonial Causes Act or the Child’s Rights Act, provides robust mechanisms for compelling that support, and the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act provides equally robust mechanisms for enforcing it once granted.
The pathway to an enforceable child maintenance order can be summarised in four steps: identify the legal framework that applies to your circumstances and your state, file a detailed and well supported application built on evidence rather than emotion, ensure the order made is specific and measurable, and be prepared to use the available enforcement tools, in escalating order, if the order is ignored.
Every child deserves to be provided for. If a parent is refusing to meet that obligation, the court is the appropriate arena, and the law is squarely on the side of the child. Do not be discouraged by the process. Be guided by it, and where the issues are contested or the stakes are high, be guided also by a lawyer experienced in family law in your state
[1]Child’s Rights Act 2003, s. 14(1) ; see also Matrimonial Causes Act, Cap M7, LFN 2004, s. 70.
[2]Matrimonial Causes Act, Cap M7, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, Part IV (Maintenance, Custody and Settlement), ss. 69 to 72.
[3]Matrimonial Causes Act, s. 70(4).
[4]Matrimonial Causes Act, s. 69. See Abiodun Ogunnubi, “Maintenance Orders in Nigeria: Statutory and Judicial Consideration,” S.P.A. Ajibade & Co (2024).
[5]Ugbah v. Ugbah (2009) 3 NWLR (Pt. 1127) 108.
[6]Matrimonial Causes Act, s. 70(1) and (2).
[7]Lagos State Child’s Rights Law 2007 (as amended)
[8]Child’s Rights Act 2003, s. 14(1).
[9]Child’s Rights Act 2003, s. 14(2).
[10]Child’s Rights Act 2003, ss. 149 and 150
[11] “Why the Child’s Rights Act Still Doesn’t Apply throughout Nigeria,” The Conversation (2023); National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria, “Child Rights” (overview page).
[12]See Matrimonial Causes Act, s. 70(1) and (2).
[13]Matrimonial Causes Act, s. 71(1); Child’s Rights Act 2003, s. 1.
[14]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, Cap S6, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, and the Judgment (Enforcement) Rules made pursuant to it.
[15]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, ss. 83 to 92.
[16]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, s. 83(1).see Guaranty Trust Bank Plc v. Innoson Nigeria Ltd (2014) LPELR CA/I/258/2011, and Fidelity Bank Plc v. Okwuolu & Anor (2012) LPELR 8497 (CA).
[17]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, s. 55.
[18]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, s. 63.
[19]Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, s. 72.
[20]Judgment (Enforcement) Rules, Order 9, Rule 13.
[21]See, generally, “Committal Proceedings in Nigeria, Processes and Procedures,” Lexavier Partners (2021); “Contempt of Court in Nigeria, What the Cases of Three Convicted Security Officials Tell Us,” The Conversation (2024).
CONTRIBUTORS
OJIENOH SEGUN JUSTICE, ESQ.,
LEAD PARTNER, EKO SOLICITORS AND ADVOCATES
Idowu-Agida Nifemi
COUNSEL, EKO SOLICITORS AND ADVOCATES
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