Nigeria’s National Assembly has announced plans to translate federal laws into Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and other indigenous languages as part of a broader effort to make legislative information more accessible to the public.
Henry Nwawuba, Executive Secretary of the National Assembly Library Trust Fund, disclosed the plan in Abuja during the opening of the 2026 National Assembly Library Week, themed “Parliamentary Memory: Connecting Records, Legislation and the People.”
Nwawuba said the initiative would help more Nigerians understand laws that affect their daily lives, particularly citizens who have limited proficiency in English.
The translation project is part of a wider programme to modernise the National Assembly’s information infrastructure. The Library Trust Fund is also investing in electronic repositories, upgrading the National Assembly e-Library and developing a mobile application to give lawmakers, researchers, legislative aides and members of the public easier access to parliamentary records.
The National Assembly also plans to introduce a Bills Tracker that would allow the public to follow bills as they move through the legislative process. Infographics, audiovisual materials and video explainers are also being developed to make bills, Acts and legislative procedures easier to understand.
The initiative also comes amid concerns about the circulation of incomplete, outdated or unauthorised versions of parliamentary documents. Clerk to the National Assembly Kamoru Ogunlana said stronger systems were needed to authenticate official legislative records and protect them from manipulation as more parliamentary materials move online.
The planned translations are consistent with Nigeria’s National Language Policy, which provides that laws enacted at the federal level should be written in English and translated into Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and other Nigerian languages of wider communication.
The National Assembly says the broader digitisation and translation programme is intended to preserve Nigeria’s parliamentary history while making legislative information easier for citizens to find, understand and use. The translation programme is currently a planned initiative; the National Assembly has not announced a completion date or specified that every federal law will immediately be available in all the listed languages.
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