While a total of 888 students of the Nigerian Law School failed the bar final examination conducted in November 2023 by the Council of Legal Education, 251 came out with first-class.
In all, 4,412 candidates were successful out of a total of 5,300 who sat for the examination.
TheĀ Director-General of the Nigerian Law School, Prof. Isa Hayatu Chiroma, made this disclosure at the Call to Bar ceremony held in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said, āMr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Body of Benchers, I will be presenting at this Call to the Bar ceremonies a total of 4,412 candidates who were successful at the November 2023 Bar Final examinations as well as 14 candidates from previous Bar Final Examinations
āI am happy to report on the good performance recorded by the candidates as seen in the Executive Summary below: Outstanding/General Performance.
āTotal number of students who participated in the Examinations: 5,300.
āTotal number of successful candidates: 4,412
āThe Nigerian Law School is proudly happy to report that a total number of 251 candidates bagged first class grade in the last Bar final examination. This is indeed an outstanding excellent performance and, of course, unprecedented.
āThese figures translate to 83.3 per cent success at the Bar final examinations.ā
The Chairman of the Body of Benchers, who is a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Mary Peter-Odili, described the current period as bad for the judiciary.
She noted that the confidence in the judiciary was dwindling as a result of the spate of conflicting judgments and in discipline among lawyers.
Peter-Odili said, āIt is a bad period in the sense that the judiciary is being bashed and public confidence in the legal system is dwindling, occasioned by incessant conflicting judgments in our courts and flagrant indiscipline amongst lawyers.ā
She said the Body of Benchers had set up a committee to see to the issue of conflicting judgments.
The Punch