Proliferation Of Law School Campuses

By Muiz Banire SAN

That political satire, “Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again,” by Professor Ola Rotimi, produced in 1977, is currently being acted in Nigeria’s legislative chambers as the play captures the emerging scenario and the unfolding events in the academic space. When, on the 2nd day of December, 2021, I penned the piece, “Tertiary Education and the Future of Nigeria: Another Perspective!” (https://www.sunnewsonline.com/tertiary-education-and-the-future-of-nigeria-another-perspective) and recently on the 20th day of January, 2022, I wrote the piece published under the title “NUC: Please Save the Nation” (https://www.sunnewsonline.com/nuc-please-save-the-nation) little did I realise that I was not only envisaging another calamitous event by our legislators but actually addressing a deaf and dumb audience. In those write-ups, I warned of the indiscretion being exhibited by the legislators in the continuous sponsorship of more universities and tertiary institutions in the country and the unrestrained tendencies of the National Universities Commission (NUC) in indulging them through grant of licenses establishing more universities and accrediting new courses in ‘unprogrammed’ universities.

By the latter I meant universities that are primarily licensed to be specialist in focus but veering into other disciplines alien to their basic mandates. An apt illustration is a university licensed as a ‘University of Agriculture’ or a ‘University of Science and Technology’ but now more focused on humanities and other social sciences. The worst of all is the haphazard running of Law as a course due to what is considered to be its potential and real lucrative nature. The proliferation of the law faculties in the nation is already a source of worry to a lot of stakeholders in the legal profession. That probably explains the curtailment of admission into the extant law faculties. Just as I raised in the earlier conversations alluded to above, the continuous establishment of more universities in the country in the face of dearth of academic personnel and adequate funding is already constituting a curse to the country.

The worst of this is that embarked upon by the Federal and State governments. Already, we are all living witnesses to the various agitations in the universities owned by the governments over decaying infrastructure and welfare issues, often leading to incessant strike actions. As I write this column, a strike has begun again at the instance of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since the 14th day of February, 2022, in all the universities over the challenge of funding the universities. Notwithstanding this funding challenge, the government, particularly the federal government is still establishing more universities, particularly those propelled by the machinery of the legislators.

As indicated in those columns, the implications are not limited to the production of malnourished graduates, it continues to populate the soaring figure of unemployment in the nation, majorly because the country is producing purported graduates in areas where the skills are not needed. It is needless to state that this is a further harbinger and contributory factor to the state of insecurity in the country. Consequently, I therein appealed to the promoters of this enterprise to immediately cease the interventions in this regard. Equally, I pleaded with the NUC to desist from further licensing the establishment of more universities, and rather embark on the rationalization of courses in the existing universities, including the promotion of mergers where practicable and desirable.

This plea was subsequent to the establishment of six more universities by the federal government while the extant universities are groaning in deficiency and inadequacy. It is on record that my condemnation of the proliferation of tertiary institutions equally received blessings of the ASUU recently. In the course of this misadventure, the legislators have now arrogated to themselves the right to trigger the establishment of such institutions in a manner suggestive of inadequate and unreflecting thinking.

This act is not unconnected with their desire to provide the so-called democratic dividends to their constituents. Unfortunately, in most instances, such institutions are not desirable in those areas either in terms of suitability or need. However, in their naïve view, everything constitutes democratic dividends even where accessibility or sustenance is a challenge. As I was awaiting good reasoning to prevail by way of review and reverse of the ugly trend, pursuant to my interventions, another bombshell was released by the senators. This time, it is my constituency, which is the legal profession, that is the subject of this unwarranted assault. In my last intervention above, I alerted us to the churning out of lawyers to the society in a manner that is undesirable.

Although it is often claimed that the number of lawyers in the country, relative to the population, is still disproportionate, the proponents of this view forget that population is never the sole determinant as economy plays a significant role. Bench-marking this economic issue with the number of lawyers reveals over-production of lawyers in the country. In recent times, the Nigeria Law School graduates over 5,000 lawyers yearly from the existing campuses. Out of this number, maximum of about 500 fortunately get engaged in one form or the other. The balance of the number is often thrown into the already burdened unemployment market, with some ending up in one criminality or the other. The Nigeria Law School is a postgraduate professional training institution mainly designed to develop the skills of law graduates in the procedural aspects of law.

The school operates a multi-campus system in Lagos State, Adamawa State, Kano State, Enugu State, Bayelsa State, the Federal Capital Territory and, more recently, Rivers State. As at date, only the Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory branches are exhaustively utilized. This is even in the face of collapsing infrastructure. None of the campuses is adequately catered for. In virtually all of the campuses, there is glaring evidence of dilapidating infrastructure. This has resulted into executive begging by way of donations to support the campuses. Even at that, a lot is still much desired in the upgrade of the infrastructure. A visit to the oldest of the campuses, which is Lagos, will bear eloquent testimony to this. Again, as at the time of establishing these campuses, I cannot recall any legislation birthing them. They were administratively established by the Council of Legal Education out of necessity and convenience. You then immediately wonder why the need for such legislation now!

The answer lies in the fact that the legislators themselves are not convinced of the legitimacy of this cause hence the need to impose unneeded institutions on the populace just to be able to boast that they have provided federal presence in their ‘unfortunate’ constituencies. They, therefore, fear that such illogical decision can easily be reversed in the nearest future by a progressive House. Should it become desirable for whatever reason in the future to reduce the number of such unnecessary institutions, it then will require another legislative intervention. Is this reasonable at all? Certainly not. Is this not a waste of legislative time and resources to legislate on such frivolity? Why must we extend our parochialism to education? Little time, we will loudly legalise the democratization of admission as well as awards as democratic dividends. I say ‘loudly’ as I know that it is already creeping into the system already.

Beyond this, do we really need the additions in the states like Ekiti, Delta, Kebbi, Anambra, Borno and Kogi, which was recently announced by the Senate? Rationalizing the premise for the promotion of the new campuses, the chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, said it was a legislative intervention to address “the exponential increase in the number of law graduates from our universities and foreign ones, coupled with the backlog that existed over the years.”

Although I am not too sure of the genuineness of this assertion, assuming, without conceding that this assertion is correct, would it not be sensible to expand the infrastructures in the existing facilities rather than embarking on setting up of new campuses? Is the legislative house that deals with appropriation not aware of the parlous state of our economy and funding challenge? Is the Law School immune to the daunting funding challenge of the nation?

Do the legislators want to plead ignorance of the inadequate funding of the present campuses? How does one then rationalize this bizarre decision of the Senate? To my mind, it is simply myopic. Strangely, the Chairman further canvassed for the priority funding of the proposed new campuses by the federal government when he, and by extension, the Senate know that such fund is not available? Is this not the same federal government that is still challenged with the funding of the existing institutions that is expected to sponsor these proposed creatures? Is that not taking clowning to its’ peak? Why ignite crisis where there is none? In further justifying the proposal, the Chairman referred to the existence of 237 Law Schools in the United States of America with a population of 350 million, according to him. Happily, before my intervention, I read the immediate reaction of Earnest Ojukwu, former Deputy Director-General of the Nigerian Law School debunking the assertion of equating law faculties in the United States of America with our own professional Law School.

That contention by the Chairman is definitely fallacious and misleading. The question that should even be asked is, since our practice is patterned after the English system, what obtains there? Certainly, such humongous number does not exist in Britain and not even in the shape of our Law School. Only professional training institutions, which are private, exists in the United Kingdom. With the current state of the country’s economy and the challenge of funding education generally, it is obvious that there is no wisdom in the proposal to establish more campuses of the Nigerian Law School. Rather than advocating such enterprise, I suspect that ‘commonsense’ should dictate primarily the maintenance and expansion of the existing facilities where desirable in the extant campuses.

Furthermore, with the dwindling opportunities for the practice of law, rather than creating more rooms, we should be conscripting the space for other desirable skills in the country. Those skills that will accelerate the growth and development of the nation are what we badly need now. Not cosmetics falsely tagged ‘development’. No doubt, the standard of the new wigs is falling badly as a result of several factors including the harsh environment of study. This includes the quality and welfare of personnel.

I would strongly advocate, as is the global trend now, that the nation should be progressing towards the privatization of the professional training while the Nigerian Law School serves as the regulator in terms of setting the standards by way of conduct of uniform examination. The country, as whole, is currently groaning under heavy expenditures and reeling in debts. Any opportunity to free resources for other critical priority areas like health must be embraced. This attitude of the legislators in ‘mushrooming’ Law Schools is certainly unhelpful to the system and inimical to the future of our prospective lawyers. Where did we get it wrong?

Should this be the next on the legislative agenda of the Senate? When has it become the business of legislators to be legislating the setting up of campuses of existing institutions, particularly where the viability of the existing ones is questionable? My suspicion is that this is not well thought-out and there is a disconnect somewhere. This is possibly best rationalized through the evaluation of the mental state of our rulers. When, in one of my columns, I insisted on psychiatric evaluation of candidates for election, the impression seemed to be that I was killing a mosquito with a sledge hammer. Is this act not assuming such coloration? Your guess is as good as mine. In the light of all the above, this Senate’s decision is illogical, just as other similar ones in recent past like the eternal amendment of the Constitution.

This must not be assented to by the President. All men of goodwill in the nation, particularly in the legal profession, must rise up against this. As remarked at the beginning, to the extent that there is no plausible explanation for this act again, one can only conclude that” our legislators have gone mad again”, apology to Ola Rotimi. I rest my case.