Frustrations Of A New Wig By Agherario Emmanuel Esq

Today, more than ever, there is an ever-increasing number of law graduates. After five years of the rigorous baking process with all the hype, the prestige and the respect notwithstanding, law graduates are not guaranteed a secured future unlike their medical counterparts.

Passage to law school after university is always almost impossible for a good number. While a medical student on internship is on attractive monthly remuneration for the one year period, a law school bound graduate is made to cough out a fortune. Inability to afford the ever exorbitant law school fee has made some aspirants become lawyers later than they ought to. If you are fortunate enough to afford law school and its rigours and so bag the ‘call to bar certificate’ the troubles still do not end.

The literarily ‘new wig’ swaps his wig for the camp of a youth corper in the year-long National Youth Service. He is employed into a state or federal ministry of justice which is inadequately funded itself and so it goes without saying that he’ll be paid ‘’peanuts’’. If not, he is posted to a private firm where he is apportioned the most workload but when it comes to remuneration, someone always remembers he is a mere corper.

After his Youth Service, he plunges into a deep ocean of confusion in a bid to find a path to tow of the many legal frontiers to explore in accordance with his passion and interest. This is coupled with the search for employment made worse by pressure from family and friends who can hardly wait for ‘’The Law’’ to start dispensing his legal duties. After many denied attempts, he is forced to make do with whatever jobs comes his way giving personal interest least priority. If he is lucky to find any job at all in the very competitive Nigerian labour market, his take-home can hardly take him home.

The result of these many frustrations,[travails’] is an ineffective, shabby and corrupt justice delivery system. A system that does not put appropriate structures or modalities in place for the sustenance of the harbingers of the legal system to ensure that the generation coming behind is even better than the present one

The fact remains that the governance system has failed us but the onus is largely on us not to fail ourselves. If we can rise above the stakes and daunting challenges, it would only ensure we are made a better generation. I would part by rely on the immutable words of Abraham Lincoln where he said ‘’that some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well’’

Agherario Emmanuel Esq.Legal Practitioner Base in Warri