COVENANTAL JUSTICE AND POSITIVE LAW: A PROPHETIC AND COMPARATIVE READING OF THE STATUTORY PROTECTION OF MINORS AND VULNERABLE ADULTS UNDER NIGERIAN LAW

Abstract

The indictment of Ezekiel 34:4 traverses the centuries with a precision calculated to unsettle every institution entrusted with the welfare of the weak: the sick were not healed, the injured were not bound up, the strayed were not brought back, the lost were not sought, and, by way of climax, those in authority ruled with force and harshness. This article argues that the six-fold grammar of institutional negligence encoded in Ezekiel 34:4 provides a theologically coherent and exegetically grounded diagnostic framework for reading Nigeria’s evolving statutory architecture for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults. Through close exegesis of the Hebrew text and comparative legal analysis of the Child Rights Act 2003, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015, the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act 2015, the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015, and the Evidence Act 2011, the article traces the points of structural convergence between prophetic indictment and positive law, identifies the implementation gaps that map precisely onto Ezekiel’s categories of failure, and proposes both legal reforms and cultural engagement strategies capable of closing the distance between statutory protection and actual safety.