When the Nigerian Law School was founded 59 years ago, it was meant to provide legal training that is academic and vocational, both of which are essential to the quality of our justice delivery system.
From 1962 when eight students were admitted for a three-month course at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, till date, over 100,000 men and women who passed through the six campuses of Nigerian Law school have been called to the Nigerian Bar. Presently, about 6,000 new lawyers are turned out every year. But the question is, does the number match the quality produced?
In one of our January interviews, Hon. Justice Umaru F. Abdullahi, a former President, Court of Appeal and one time Chairman, Body of Benchers cried out that the legal profession in this country is in danger. His Lordship in that interview said:
“Let me start from the beginning about the perception of the generality of Nigerians about Nigerian lawyers. There is this perception that the standard of practice has gone down, and you can hear this from even lawyers themselves. Discipline has become a shadow of itself from what it used to be.”
Hon. Justice Abdullahi continued: “Some attributed the issue to the large number of people that study law as a profession. Some say it’s not necessarily the large number, because there are countries that are producing a lot of lawyers but their standards still remain high, and their standard of discipline also remains intact. So, maybe it is a reflection of our society itself. But can the law profession afford to fold into the circle of the general indiscipline that pervades the society? Isn’t a lawyer supposed to lead the way that people should follow? Should the lawyer melt into the society and adopt all the maladies that the society is grappling with? I think not.”
Taking a swipe at universities which are the entry point, his lordship added: “Now, if the universities are lowering their standards and limiting the number of brilliant students from studying law, right from that stage, there is going to be a problem. If you lower standards or give preference to some people who have not met the standard, then you are beginning to mess the system up. And the profession will be the loser at the end of the day.”
Could this be part of the problems the country is facing today in the justice delivery sector? In litigation for instance, the lawyer’s role and ability is most visible. As has been said, the quality of judicial decisions and the coherence of the reasoning underlying a judgment depend on the quality of argument presented to the court and upon the ability of the judge. All these depend on the quality of legal education.
As it stands, lack of adequate funding is the bane of legal training and education in Nigeria. Sadly, the country’s educational sector is in dire straits. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and professor of law, Prof. Fabian Ajogwu, noted that allocation for education, including legal education, in the last 20 years has been appalling. He observed that Nigerian lawyers are trained under some of the worst conditions of learning.
While delivering a lecture titled: ‘’Rethinking legal education in Nigeria to meet the needs of the 21st Century’’, Ajogwu remarked that sound education is a prerequisite for honouring the trust lawyers hold as legal practitioners.
According to the learned professor: “The world is a global village and our economy as well as its needs, are ever-changing. Legal practitioners play an important role in ensuring the sanctity of the world; hence, they must be trained to meet global economic complexities as they arise. Nigeria’s legal education must be revamped to reflect these 21st-century complexities.”
Nigerian Law School campuses are affected by huge infrastructural deficit. No doubt, this impacts negatively on students’ ability to focus and assimilate learning. Students from different campuses complain about poor facilities. From leaking lecture halls in the main campus at Abuja to other campuses where lamentations abound over the terrible state of even bathrooms and blocked toilets; not to mention that sometimes five adults are cramped in rooms with tiny bunks and no wardrobes. Spice that up with poor water supply and a legion of others.
And yes, we are in agreement with Idem Udosen Jacob who observed that, when students are taught in an environment where they have no access to basic amenities, they inevitably spend more time attending to issues well outside the ambit of what he is taught in school.
“The effect such poor facilities have on Nigerian Law students,” he stressed, “can be better imagined when one considers how well they perform when they travel abroad for further studies. It is obvious that Nigerian Law students are held back from fully developing their potentials by poor facilities.”
But with the Nigerian Law School receiving a mere 1.6 billion naira per year to run its six campuses, one can only wonder at the manner of miracle it is expected to perform with that little.
As he marks his 60th birthday on July 11, 2021, Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, Chairman, Council of Legal Education has pledged to dedicate the remaining two years of his tenure to mobilise support towards infrastructure development in Nigeria Law Schools.
“The subvention received from the government is very poor so I want to create awareness with my 60th birthday. I will use the occasion to appeal to my brothers in the inner bar to donate facilities for the law school. Abuja and Enugu campuses for instance have constructed medical centres but they have not been completed because they don’t have money. I need stakeholders to see what can be done in the development of the law school.
“Not necessarily to donate money; but they need books, mattresses, ACs, chairs, CCTV cameras. I am using the opportunity of my birthday to appeal to the stakeholders in the legal profession to come to the aid of the Nigerian law school because this is my main focus for the next two years I would be in the headship of the council.”
We join the Learned Silk in our prayers as we wish him a happy 60th birthday and the fulfillment of his dreams.
