No Law Establishes The Nigerian Law School — Prof. Ernest Ojukwu

*Says Adding More Campuses Is Retrogressive
*Says NLS Is Terribly Underfunded
*Calls For Vocational Legal Education Curriculum And Accreditation Of Private Training Providers

A former Deputy Director-General of the Nigerian Law School, Prof. Ernest Ojukwu (SAN), has described the Bill seeking to amend the Legal Education Act to establish additional Law School campuses as “misconceived”.

He argued that the principal extant Act did not even establish the Nigerian Law School or any of the functioning campuses.

Ojukwu, who was head of Campus, Augustine Nnamani Campus, Agbani, Enugu between 2001 and 2013, said the state of existing campuses was shameful.

He said in a statement “The existing Legal Education Act mentions the Nigerian Law School by reference. No legislation establishes the Nigerian Law School or its campuses.

“So what are you amending? Why do you need to establish additional law school campuses by amending a law that did not establish the school in the first place?

“The next issue is the archaic and outdated policy of continued running in-school-publicly funded vocational and professional legal education at this time of civilisation. That policy has failed and trying to expand it by legislating additional campuses is retrogressive and backward.

“The current thinking is that we should rather review the policy and the existing Legal Education Act by focusing on an empowered Council of Legal Education that will only prescribe a vocational/professional legal education curriculum benchmarks, accredit private training service providers and administer bar examinations.

“It is actually time to abolish the Nigerian Law School. It has outlived its usefulness and it will never rise above its present incapacity due to continued government approach to its funding.”

According to Ojukwu, the government is not ready to continue to adequately fund the Nigerian Law School.

This, he said, has become the main challenge to raising its training capacity and the standard of legal education in the country.

“The Nigerian Law School is terribly underfunded and under supported. Its training is still conducted as stadium lectures because the school cannot fund infrastructure, classrooms and facilities for small class lessons.

“The school cannot employ the required number of teachers because the government does not permit the employment of at least over 200 additional teachers and adjuncts that will make a success of small class lessons.

“There is no way you can prepare a lawyer in a 1500 stadium strength class to one teacher and achieve any useful outcome for standard legal education and competent professional. But that is the current state of the law school generally.

“The management and staff of the Nigerian Law School literally use bare hands to press out water from stone in a tough struggle to keep its vocational education alive.”

The SAN said the existing campuses are in deplorable states.

The statement added: “The other aspect of infrastructure at the law school, and especially the campuses, is a shame. The hostels are terribly overcrowded.

“Looking at how the government has so underfunded the existing campuses of the Nigerian Law School, it will be correct to question the thinking of the sponsors of the Bill seeking to introduce additional campuses. Something must be wrong.

“It clearly shows a terrible disconnection between our legislators and our governance.

“Before embarking on this kind of legislative proposal, a lawmaker should undertake a deep study and research on the history, purpose and experience of the institution it proposes to make fundamental changes for, such as legislating additional campuses.

“In 2006, the Federal Government set up a legal education reform committee headed by late Prof Jegede SAN. The committee submitted its report in 2007.

“The report recommended the ‘deregulation’ of the Nigerian Law School to allow the establishment of private training providers side by side with the Nigerian Law School with a strengthened Council of Legal Education to set the examination for all.

“That Committee also drafted a Legal Education Bill to support these reforms and government submitted the Bill to the National Assembly in 2007. But the bill was ignored.

“In 2012, the Nigerian Bar Association made proposals along the same line as in 2007 and in 2012 the NBA submitted a new Legal Education Bill to the National Assembly. That Bill died in the National Assembly.

“In 2018, NBA drafted a new Legal Professional Council of Nigeria Act that consolidated the Legal Practitioners Act and the Legal Education Act.

“In this proposed bill, the Council of Legal Education has been strengthened to manage the standard of vocation legal education and set bar exams and private law schools to exist side by side with the Nigerian Law School.

“The sponsors of the current additional Nigerian law school campuses seem not to know these facts and policy shift towards our professional legal education. Surely that proposal for additional campuses must be rejected.

“It is sad that the legal profession in Nigeria has been unable to influence since 1999 any serious legislative reform that fundamentally affects its future- in terms of how we are organised, managed, disciplined trained and retrained.

“The state of legal education in Nigeria at both the university undergraduate level and at the vocational training is a shocking shame.”