We list 6 phD Law Scholarships Open to Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 6 of them are fully funded. Most are held in China (3), the United States (2) and Australia (1). Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
These awards do not restrict the field of study, so law applicants can apply too.
Written from the 6 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 4 min read.
This page holds every award on ScholarshipsNigeria that fits one description: PhD Law Scholarships Open to Nigerian Students. There are 6 of them right now. Each entry was read before it was listed, and the deadline, study level, what the award pays for and who may apply were taken from the scholarship's own published terms — not from a summary of it, and not from another listing site.
6 of the 6 are fully funded, meaning the award itself states that it carries the main cost of study rather than a discount on it. That matters more than the number of entries: a list of two hundred partial fee waivers is worth less to a Nigerian applicant than a dozen awards that actually pay for the degree.
The awards are held in 3 countries, concentrated in China (3), the United States (2) and Australia (1). Where you study changes the cost of everything the scholarship does not cover, so the host country is worth deciding before the shortlist.
Scholarship pages use words like "full funding" loosely, so we counted what the awards on this list actually name in their own benefit sections. Across the 6 entries:
Read the counts as "this many awards say so in writing". An award that does not mention flights has not refused to pay for them — it simply has not promised them, and that is the difference you need to budget for. The cost a Nigerian applicant most often forgets is not tuition but the part before the scholarship starts: passport, transcripts, courier fees, an English test if one is required, and the visa itself.
6 of the 6 awards on this page are open to Nigerian applicants on their own stated terms. 0 of those name Nigeria, or a region that contains Nigeria, directly in the eligible-countries wording; the other 6 place no nationality restriction at all, which means a Nigerian passport is not a barrier to applying.
On qualifications, this list assumes one starting point: you hold a master's degree. In Nigerian terms that is M.Sc · M.A · MBA · M.Phil, and it is the entry point for phd & doctoral study.
Funded doctoral places and research scholarships. Many are tied to a supervisor or research group, so the programme application and the scholarship often share one deadline.
Degree class is where Nigerian applicants most often rule themselves out wrongly, because the wording differs:
A criterion written as "a good honours degree" or "upper second class or equivalent" is the one most Second Class Upper graduates meet. Where an award sets a numeric CGPA instead, the award page quotes the figure it asked for.
We also counted what the 6 awards ask applicants to produce, reading each award's own requirements:
1 of the 6 mention an English test, which leaves 5 that do not raise it on the award page. Several universities waive IELTS for Nigerian applicants because the degree was taught in English, but that waiver is a university decision rather than a scholarship one, so ask the admissions office in writing and keep the reply.
Start with the documents that take longest and do not depend on the award: a valid passport, official transcripts from your institution, and a reference your referee has actually agreed to write. Those three are what make a late-discovered deadline impossible to meet.
3 of the awards on this page have a closing date that has not passed, and they are listed soonest first. 3 carry a date that repeats each cycle — the month is reliable, the exact day is confirmed by the provider when the round opens. 3 publish no date at all, usually because applications are tied to the university admission round rather than to the scholarship.
The year is not evenly spread. On this list the heaviest months are October (2) and September (1). Work backwards from those months rather than forwards from today.
Closing next on this list:
The providers appearing most often are University of Tasmania (1), Stanford University (1), Harvard University (1), Shanghai Universities (Check list below) (1) and Beijing Universities (1). Where one institution runs several awards it is usually worth reading all of them together: they often share one application form and one deadline.
Stated duration, where an award gives one, runs mostly to phd: 3.5 years with no extension available. it is important (1 awards), the knight-hennessy scholars program funds up to the first t (1 awards) and 2 years (1 awards).
Work down the list rather than across it. Open the three or four awards whose deadline you can still meet, read what each one pays for against what your year will actually cost, and check the eligibility line before anything else — a Nigerian applicant who fails one stated condition cannot be rescued by a strong statement of purpose.
Use the filters in the sidebar to narrow by level, host country, subject or funding, and set an alert for this list if the next round is months away: most of these awards open and close inside a four-week window, and the people who miss them are rarely the people who were unqualified.
A browser notification when a scholarship you can apply for is added or about to close. No account needed.
