Aims & Scope

The Ahmadu Bello University Law Journal (ABULJ) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal of the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, dedicated to advancing legal research and innovation in Nigeria and beyond. It publishes original doctrinal, comparative, socio-legal and jurisprudential scholarship across all fields of law, with particular attention to Nigerian statute, case law and policy, to Islamic law, and to the African and international instruments that bear on them.
SUBJECT AREAS
• Public law and constitutional governance — constitutional interpretation and federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances, legislative oversight, local government autonomy, emergency powers, electoral law and election petitions, democratic governance, administrative law, and the appointment, independence and diversity of the judiciary.
• Criminal law and criminal justice administration — substantive criminal law and the drafting of offences, criminal procedure and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, sentencing and the death penalty, custodial and penal reform, policing and law enforcement, terrorism, banditry and insurgency, human trafficking, and corruption and economic crime.
• Human rights — enforcement of fundamental rights and the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules, women's and girls' rights including education, reproductive rights and financial inclusion, gender and the law of rape and consent, children's rights, the right to development, freedom of information and its limits, national security and the media, and regional and international human rights instruments.
• Islamic law — sources, jurisprudence and application in Nigeria; family law including marriage, Islamic law of evidence, divorce and khul', spousal rights, guardianship and custody; succession and the administration of estates; Islamic criminal law including hirabah and al-baghyu; the Sharia Court of Appeal, its jurisdiction and practice; Islamic commercial and finance law; and the teaching of Islamic law.
• Private law — land law and the Land Use Act, tenure, compulsory acquisition, compensation and title; tort including negligence and nuisance; contract; family law and succession; customary law and its ascertainment and proof; and civil procedure and jurisdiction.
• Commercial and corporate law — company law under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, promoters and pre-incorporation contracts, directors' duties, corporate governance and insolvency; banking and finance, financial inclusion, anti-money laundering and terrorist financing; consumer protection; competition; taxation; and the harmonisation of business law in Africa.
• Labour and employment law — contracts of employment, dismissal and termination, trade unions, strikes and industrial action, and workplace rights and social security.
• Energy, environmental and natural resources law — the Petroleum Industry Act and petroleum regulation, oil and gas, the law of the sea and offshore exploration, mining, environmental protection, pollution and air quality, compensation for environmental degradation, environmental litigation, and climate and biodiversity.
• Intellectual property, technology and communications law — copyright and its enforcement across borders, collecting societies and digital distribution, trade marks and patents, telecommunications regulation and consumer protection, data protection and privacy, cybercrime, and the law of emerging technologies including telemedicine.
• International and comparative law — public international law, international humanitarian law and belligerent occupation, international criminal law and international policing, international trade and the World Trade Organization, treaties and sovereign immunity, aviation and maritime law, conflict of laws, and comparative study of Nigerian law against other jurisdictions.
• Legal education, the legal profession and jurisprudence — legal education and curriculum, professional ethics and right of audience, access to justice and legal aid, arbitration, mediation and other dispute resolution under the Arbitration and Mediation Act, legal history, and legal theory.
METHODS: doctrinal analysis of statute, case law and subsidiary legislation; comparative study across jurisdictions; socio-legal and empirical work, including surveys and interviews, with a stated method and sample; case and statute commentary; historical and jurisprudential analysis; and critical or systematic review of a field. Work grounded in Nigerian law, and in African and Islamic legal traditions, is especially encouraged.
MANUSCRIPT TYPES: original research articles of not more than 8,000 words, review articles, and case or statute reviews of not more than 4,000 words, in no case exceeding twenty pages. Manuscripts must carry an abstract of not more than 250 words and four to six keywords, use footnotes in the style of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT) Citation Guide, 4th edition 2025 — endnotes are not accepted — be double-spaced with numbered lines and numbered pages, and state the law as at the date of submission. Submissions must be original, not under consideration elsewhere, written in English, and are screened for plagiarism before double-blind peer review.
READERSHIP: legal academics and postgraduate researchers; judges, magistrates and court officials; legal practitioners and in-house counsel; Sharia court judges and scholars of Islamic law; legislative drafters, regulators and policymakers; and law teachers and students in Nigeria and across Africa.
OUT OF SCOPE: political science, sociology, economics or public administration studies of a legal or governance topic that reach no legal conclusion and engage no statute, case or legal instrument; descriptive restatements of an Act or a line of cases with no argument, critique or original contribution; papers whose governing law has been repealed, amended or superseded without acknowledging it; religious exhortation or theological argument rather than analysis of Islamic law as law; comparative pieces that set two systems side by side without drawing a conclusion from the comparison; empirical claims whose population, sample and instrument are not reported; advocacy or opinion unsupported by authority; case notes that summarise a judgment without analysing its reasoning or its consequences; and consultancy reports, teaching notes and unrevised student projects.