Report on Citizenship Law: Nigeria is nonetheless the most authoritative evidence of place of birth and identity of parents, the most important factors in determining the entitlement of a person to citizenship. Birth certificates are named as potential supporting documents for passports and national identity cards; a birth certificate is required for a passport application for those born since 1992. 4.6 Local authorities and certificates of indigeneity The rules established by the 1979 and 1999 constitutions mean that for most Nigerians citizenship will be determined in practice by tracing descent to a person who was resident in Nigeria at independence and was a member of an ‘indigenous community’ of Nigeria. The issuance both of passports and of national identity cards in Nigeria depends on ‘certificates of indigeneity’, which are issued by local government authorities. As noted above, the instructions to apply for a standard Nigerian passport include the provision of a ‘Local Government letter of identification’, a reference to such a certificate. Similarly, ‘certificate of origin’ is listed as a supporting document for an application to enrol for a national ID card. Although the respective websites do not list the relative importance of the different supporting documents listed, a certificate of indigeneity is often the most critical, especially for those whose citizenship might be seen as doubtful. There is, however, no legislation that governs the conditions under which a certificate can be issued by a local government. The question of ‘indigeneity’ is discussed further below (section 5.1). 5. Current Controversies and Proposals for Law Reform 5.1 Indigeneity and citizenship British colonial laws had distinguished between different categories of ‘native’ and ‘stranger’, according to place of origin, including distinctions among ‘natives of Nigeria’ (defined as members of a tribe ‘indigenous to Nigeria’), ‘native foreigners’, and ‘non-natives’.44 These laws did not provide a definition of ‘indigenous’, and the determination of who was a member of a ‘tribe’ or ‘native community’ was left to interpretations of customary law. These legal frameworks were in part an attempt to recognise the great diversity of cultures and political traditions among the different pre-existing communities of what had become the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Understandings of belonging were also strongly influenced by the colonial categories, and they still have resonance today. However, no reference to ‘community indigenous to Nigeria’ was made in relation to citizenship in the 1960 constitution, which relied rather on place of birth over two generations 44 The Interpretation Ordinance 27 of 1939 defined a ‘native of Nigeria’ as ‘any person whose parents were members of any tribe or tribes indigenous to Nigeria’. The Native Authority Law of 1954, providing for the regionalisation of the Nigerian civil service, defined a ‘stranger’ as ‘any Native who is not a member of the native community living in the area of its authority’. See discussions in Arthur V.J. Nylander, The Nationality and Citizenship Laws of Nigeria (Lagos: University of Lagos, 1973), pp.2-5: Daniel C. Bach, ‘Federalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity in Nigeria’, in Larry Diamond, Tom Bierstecker, A.H.M. Kirk-Greene and Oye Oyediran, eds., Transition without End : Nigerian Politics and Civil Society under Babangida (Boulder CO: L. Rienner, 1997), pp.333-350. 14 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/12- © 2020 Author(s)