Bukola Olatunji
12 November 2009
Abuja — So far, Nigeria has just about 80, 000 qualified lawyers, dead and alive, who have passed through the Law School.
Director-General of the School, Dr. Tahir Mamman, who made this known at an 'International Workshop on the Review of Legal Education in Nigeria', which opened in Abuja yesterday, said, "this is a drop in the ocean compared to our population", estimated at about 140 million.
Both Tahir and President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) said lawyers appear to be many and are even unemployed, due to the very narrow focus of what lawyers do, which is mainly about litigation and setting up of chambers, "whereas there are a whole range of roles which lawyers can play in access to justice, corporate world and so many others.
The issue therefore about developing appropriate philosophy to make them think, appreciate and understand their roles in the society and having the appropriate skills to achieve those roles", Tahir said.
He further disclosed that two more campuses of the Law School, to be sited in Bayelsa and Adamawa states, have been approved by the Federal Executive Council and would, hopefully take off next year. This, he said was due to the explosion in the Faculties of Law, since the establishment of private and more state universities.
"The current direction of training in the Law School is skills based and interactive, which means it focuses on small numbers of students working in syndicates, participating in a lot of activities. We are encouraging the universities to adopt the same. This is more effective with small numbers of students in a class, so even though we are going to have more campuses, the quota of each university still remain", the DG said
On Lead City University, Ibadan, which says law graduates do not have to go to the Nigerian Law School, he said, "I don't want to join issues with them. Let them go and read that law carefully."
In the past, there was this misconception that a university can just establish its Faculty of Law. But the Council (of Legal Education) reserves the right to give approval prior to the establishment that Faculty.
Asked what becomes of Faculties of Law that were established during the five-year moratorium that has just elapsed, Tahir said, "We don't know them."
Chairman, Council of Legal Education, Hon. Justice Moronkeji Onalaja said the two-day conference, jointly organised with the National Universities Commission (NUC), was the first major step taken to bring about a comprehensive reform of legal education in Nigeria. "The aim is to have a robust regime of legal education in Nigeria that would be responsive. Both in terms of content and skills, to the needs of the legal profession", he said.
NBA President, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) advised the conference to consider the possibility of making Law a graduate course due to the falling standards in the secondary schools, which feed the law programme in universities. Even though a credit pass in Literature in English has made compulsory for admission into a law programme, Akeredolu expressed regret that the profession still does not have the required quality of entrants."We have a duty to work towards protecting the profession", he said
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