The graduates held their law dinner which is one of the requirements before going to law school, but are uncomfortable because they are barred from making the transition. Some said they wondered why the authorities are keeping them from topping off their study with the required law school programme. The president of the Law Students Association of Nigeria (LAW SAN) Umuahia chapter of the Open University, Joel Chima Alilionwu who spoke at the dinner, said that by joining other study centres, they have met the requirement for the final tutelage before practising their profession. Alilionwu said that they have been graduating law students since 2014 and that being a member of the LAWSAN which is the umbrella body has made them to be more united, while the Umuahia study centre has become a pacesetter in the area of the national body of the law student union. He urged the people who are in position of authority to ensure that Open University graduates should be allowed to attend law school like their counterparts from other universities so that their education as lawyers will be complete. In his own speech, the Secretary of the LAWSAN Umuahia chapter Agomuo Chidozie said that the problem of their non-attendance of the law schools is made more complicated by the stand of Nigerian University Commission (NUC) which is not clear on the situation. Agomuo said that the course outline of NOUN is the same as approved by the NUC for all other universities in the country and wondered why there should be a discrimination against them in the area allowing them to attend law schools at the end of their law education at the Open University. He noted that, “80 per cent of law students in NOUN are degree and post-degree graduates in various disciplines, but due to their passion to serve in the temple of justice, they are studying here in NOUN school of law and Nigeria will be at a great loss if these experienced hands are denied the opportunity of taking our legal platform to an enviable height. In our first and only participation in the National moot court competition in 2013, NOUN school of law emerged as winners in the competition where all other Nigerian universities either state, federal and private owned participated. NOUN maintains high standards in their tests and examinations, there is no cutting of corners, no sorting or sexual harassment for female students and no greasing of palms for any of the student to be awarded a high marks”. Agomuo said that in the recent time that results in Nigeria law schools calls for a total overhaul of the system and provision of a level playing ground for the students from a conventional universities and graduates of NOUN school of law, adding that 60% of the Nigerian law school students fail and none of them is from NOUN, “So please allow us to prove our mental capability with the students from the conventional universities”. He said that it will be wrong to punish the students of NOUN by denying them admission into the Nigerian law school, “Just because we accepted an offer then applied and was given admission in an institution that was established by the act of National Assembly for good citizen of Nigeria which we are part of it”. By: Ugochukwu Ugoji-Eke The Nation News]]>