WHEN 17-year-old Nafisa Abdullah Aminu from Yobe State was named the World Best in English Language Skills at the 2025 TeenEagle Global Finals held in London, United Kingdom in August, her success showed the possibility and what still blocks millions of girls from the same chance.
Nafisa represented Nigeria through the Nigerian Tulip International College (NTIC), and outperformed over 20,000 participants from 69 countries, a historic feat that has thrust her into the global academic spotlight and brought honour to Nigeria.
The young girl outshone participants from native English-speaking countries, a remarkable achievement that reflects her intelligence and the possibility for millions of girls in the country to attain such feat if provided with relevant amenities.
Barriers against Nigerian girl child
Despite enacting the Nigerian Child’s Right Act in 2003, a federal law that domesticates international treaties and guarantees the rights and well-being of children under 18, the girl child in the country has continued to face challenges.
The law, which provides for rights to health, education, protection, and sets the minimum age for marriage at 18, only takes effect in a Nigerian state after its assembly enacts it. Some states have yet to adopt the Act, creating regional disparities in child protection, particularly in the northern parts of the country.
On December 28 2023, the Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed signed the state’s 2024 budget into law and announced his assent to the child rights bill passed by lawmakers making it the last of the 36 states in Nigeria to domesticate the child rights.
Despite celebrating the important milestone towards the protection of children and girls’ rights in the 36 states of the country, some states, in their domestication have redefined “child” in a way that applies only up to a lower age than 18, or used other criteria like puberty instead of 18 years.
States like Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto claim that the marriageable age for girls is 18 years, but with the exception that muslim children can marry from 14 years and above under Islamic law.This decision implies that the Child Rights Protection Bill defines a child as someone below eighteen. Muslim children below eighteen can still marry due to the supremacy accorded to Sharia law over the Child Rights Bill.
Jigawa State signed the bill into law on December 22, but did not adopt 18 as the age of maturity for marriage. Instead, it determined the childhood age of puberty because it is believed to be controversial to the predominant culture.
Zamfara State passed the Child Protection Bill into law on August 16, 2022, without mentioning the age of marriage.
Meanwhile, Akwa Ibom defines a child as a person under 16 years old in its State Child Right Act.
Despite these milestones, challenges persist. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2024, four out of every ten girls in Nigeria are married before the age of 18, totaling over 24 million child brides and ranking third globally.
The organisation explained that although recent data suggests a decline in national prevalence from 44 per cent to 30 per cent, progress has been slow and uneven, particularly affecting the poorest households, rural areas, and girls with little or no education.
This indicated that, stopping the girl-child marriage practice in Northern Nigeria will be difficult, especially in the Northwest, where the practice becomes naturally promulgated.
Similarly, a 2022 UNICEF report, shows that 7.6 million girls are out of school in Nigeria, with 3.9 million at the primary level and 3.7 million at the junior secondary level.
In January 2025, the World Bank said its 2024 data shows that over two-third of girls drop out before junior secondary school.
The ICIR reported that an estimated 37 million women and girls in Nigeria experience period poverty, meaning they lack access to or cannot afford menstrual products, pain medication, and proper facilities.
This crisis is exacerbated by the high cost of sanitary pads and limited awareness, forcing many to resort to unhygienic materials and causing them to miss school or work.
Evidence-backed steps that help girls thrive
Experts have emphasised that investing in girls is an accelerator for national development because educated girls are more likely to delay marriage, enter the workforce, have fewer and healthier children, and build resilient communities.
Countries that prioritise the girl child through initiatives in education, economic participation, and safety, have demonstrated evidence of stronger economic growth, reduced poverty rates, and more inclusive and equitable societies.
Sweden ranked first in a United States news report, with women holding nearly half of parliamentary seats. While Denmark ranked second in the same report, Norway came third for having high female representation in parliament and secondary education rates for women.
Finland ranked forth, Netherlands ranked fifth, Canada ranked sixth and Switzerland ranked seventh for high female parliamentary representation. Other countries are Iceland, Belgium, France, and New Zealand.
According to the report, these countries have consistently rank at the top of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index because of strong social policies, high female educational attainment, generous parental leave, and labour-market supports that raise women economic participation.
Bangladesh major progress in girl enrolment and retention at primary and secondary levels stipend programmes, and targeted policies, which global studies link to improvements in women’s labour force entry and reductions in child marriage and child mortality.
Rwanda national policies and reforms have dramatically increased women political representation and economic inclusion with high share of women in parliament and targeted empowerment programmes, associated with inclusive governance and rapid post-conflict growth.
Namibia and Lithuania that are examples in top Global Gender Gap list have closed large portions of measured gender gaps in education, health, political empowerment, showing that diverse regions can achieve measurable gender parity gains.
Nigeria did not make it to the top ten African countries that prioritises the economic empowerment of women through legislation, financial inclusion strategies, and access to education and skills development by Business Insider Africa.
Liberia, Botswana , Eswatini, Togo, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Namibia, Madagascar, Ghana are the ten countries that made the list.
Young Nigerian girls making the world sit up
In 2018, a team of Nigerian teenage girls code named Team Save-A-Soul emerged as the overall winners of the Technovation World Pitch Summit in the United States, the world’s largest technology and entrepreneurship competition for girls.
The team, made up of secondary school students, Promise Nnalue, Jessica Osita, Nwabuaku Ossai, Adaeze Onuigbo, and Vivian Okoye, created a mobile application called ‘FD-Detector’ to combat the menace of counterfeit drugs in Nigeria.
Faith Odunsi At 15, who represented Nigeria at the global mathematics competition, beat China, United States of America, United Kingdom and others with an impresive 30 points margin to became the world best Mathematics student in 2021. The judges called her Calculator.
Faith made the Queen of Mathematics from JSS-3 to SS-2 when she was a part of the national Olympiad. She set a record in Cowbellpedia in 2019 by answering 19 questions in 60 seconds.
She was also in Kangourou Sans Frontieres, South African mathematics Olympiad, American mathematics competition and Pan-African mathematics Olympiad where she won medals and a silver medal in the Pan-African mathematics Olympiad in 2019. She was later made an ambassador of her school.
In 2022, Mmesoma Okonkwo received the British Council Outstanding Cambridge Learner’s Award “Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education Top in the World 2022 after recording the highest score in English as a second language in the Cambridge IGCSE examination.
Cambridge International, a division of the University of Cambridge, explained that Mmesoma demonstrated exceptional command of written and spoken English, exhibiting the highest degree of comprehension, creativity, grammar, and interpretation among all 2023 candidates worldwide.
According to a representative of Cambridge Assessment International Education at the 2023 series, “Her excellence is a testament to her diligence, the quality of education she received, and the power of global academic competitiveness.”
The 17-year-old shared her dream of running her multinational enterprise that will focus on youth empowerment and education reform when receiving the award.
Oluwabukolami Adeyemi, an 18-year-old pupil also received the British Council Outstanding Cambridge Learner’s Award “Top in the World” in 2022 for her performance in Cambridge International AS Level Law.
Leyla Caybasi, a student of Nigerian Tulip International Colleges (NTIC), achieved the top spot for Nigeria at the Cambridge AS Level Mathematics competition in 2024.
The Managing Director of NTIC, Feyzullah Bilgin, said Leyla Caybasi “outstanding Cambridge Learner Award is a testament to her future success.”
Leyla wrote two papers in AS level mathematics one and three, scoring 112 out of 125.
Nigerian student Kenechukwu Oluwanifemi Uba was named the “Top in the World” candidate in the Cambridge IGCSE English as a Second Language examination held in November 2024.
Most recently is 17-year-old Nafisa Abdullah Aminu won the World Best in English Language Skills at the 2025 TeenEagle Global Finals held in London, United Kingdom in August 2025.
Nafisa represented Nigeria through the Nigerian Tulip International College (NTIC), and outperformed over 20,000 participants from 69 countries.
In 2025, Amara emerged as the Africa regional winner of The Earth Prize, a global environmental sustainability competition for teenagers for her innovative design of a playground made from recycled materials and her leadership in promoting climate resilience within Lagos communities.
17-year-old’ project turned a waste dump in Ikota, Lagos into a community playground built from recycled tyres, metal scraps, and reclaimed wood.
The International Day of the Girl Child is both a reminder and an opportunity to celebrate the trailblazers from Nigeria making global waves and to redouble efforts to remove the barriers standing between millions of girls and their future.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.