The Body Of Senior Advocates Of Nigeria (BOSAN) has commended the Council of Legal Education (CLE) led by Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN for infusing discipline and sanity in Nigeria’s legal educational system.
Speaking on behalf BOSAN at the special sitting of the Supreme Court of Nigeria to mark the opening of the 2024/2025 legal year and the induction and admission of new legal practitioners to the inner bar on 30th September, 2024, Chief T. J. Onomigbo Okpoko, SAN remarked that “Unless our society embraces the principle of adhering to discipline, development and improvement of life and property of citizens in our country will continue to elude us.”
Excerpts.
“Still on this line of indiscipline, a clear example is the sanction recently imposed by the Council of Legal Education headed by an Eminent Senior Advocate of Nigeria- Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN. The Council of Legal Education has rolled out sanctions against some faculties of Law in some of our Tertiary Institutions.
“For some time now, our training program for Candidates seeking admission to the legal profession, has been put under stress by acts of indiscipline by some Law faculties in some of our Tertiary institutions which admit students in Faculties of Law and graduated such student with Law degrees without accreditation by the Council of Legal Education.
“It is the indiscipline of such institutions that create the problems of Law graduates sitting at home for some years without gaining admission to law school. This problem itself is further aggravated by emergence of the despicable and destructive “Nigeria factor” which creates priority for those who have connection and influence peddlers.
“In the press statement, the Council of Legal Education listed the sanctioned institutions barred from sending graduates to the Law school for now. These Law graduates of several Universities whose Faculties of Laws admitted and graduated Law graduates without accreditation of their Institutions by the Council of Legal Education to run Law degree course.
“The Council also discovered that a University that has accreditation for 50 Law students has in fact admitted 1000 students into its faculty of Law, in total violation of admission quota. Such acts of indiscipline that has pervaded some tertiary institutions in the country is not acceptable by BOSAN.
BOSAN congratulates the Council of Legal Education for sanitizing the system and sanctioning violators. The Deans of Law in the affected tertiary institutions are violators and deserve to be sanctioned. Nigeria will be a better place if all will learn from the action taken by the Council of Legal Education. Discipline is the watchword.
“Unless our society embraces the principle of adhering to discipline, development and improvement of life and property of citizens in our country will continue to elude us. And so to our new Seniors Advocates, we say once more that discipline is the key.”
