‘Law School standard has improved, but students are uncommitted’

Can you examine the mass failure recently recorded in the Nigerian Law School this year and the factors responsible?The failure in the Nigerian Law School is quite embarrassing to me. Anybody going to the Law School should be prepared to face the challenges there. But unfortunately, these days most of the students don’t want to […]

Can you examine the mass failure recently recorded in the Nigerian Law School this year and the factors responsible?
The failure in the Nigerian Law School is quite embarrassing to me. Anybody going to the Law School should be prepared to face the challenges there. But unfortunately, these days most of the students don’t want to commit their time to proper studies.
By my estimation Law School standard has not dropped, it has rather improved. The nine months’ Law School programme is like doing two masters degrees. With the introduction of internet learning, internet assessment or internet research – the clinical law and video conferencing – it has improved because in our time we never had such. It conforms to international best practices; the Harvard Law School standard.
I think the students, rather than devote their time to appropriate studies with the laptop or systems, veer off to look at other applications on the internet thereby causing some kind of interference in their studies. That to me is one of the reasons the students fail. Law school programme is such that you must give hundred percent intensive concentration, otherwise you lose out.
With the short attention span among contemporary students due to the internet, should the government interfere in regulating the consumption of the internet in schools?
You cannot compel mature students to study. You can only inspire them by the necessary infrastructure to enable them study. What if the student deliberately does not want to study? So what the government should rather do is introduce measures that will inspire the students to study. Let the school authorities constantly bombard them with academic exercises. The restrictions should not come from government but from the school environment. Government does not need to make a law to compel students to study, it does not work anywhere. Study is a personal decision.
What role should senior lawyers play to encourage the young lawyers?
You can do this by regularly interacting with them. Let them have access to you; let them know your experiences. What I do for example, particularly those from my state, when they are about entering Law School is I let them know that anyone that passes the Law School exams is entitled to free set of wig and gown. That is an inspiration because a couple of students are distracted by their financial constraints. So in my little way I inspire them and for the past five years I have been giving free wig and gown to Law Students of Cross River origin. My chambers is free; I give them access to Law Reports of the 1800s and English Law Reports. The Law School itself has enough materials.
How was learning during your days in the Law School?
When I attended the Law School in Kano, the programme was so choked. I hardly had time to even call my family. The programme was so concentrated I hardly had time to do anything else. Lectures started from 9 o’clock to 4 o’clock and in-between we had tea break and lunch break making it a cumulative period of two hours every day. And after that I needed to go back to revise what we have done so that we don’t get accumulated the following day. And the reading environment was quite serene. We didn’t have distractions. Even though we had drinking pubs, we never even had time to go for drinking spree. And even during weekends, you are accumulated with the past week’s academic work that you needed to complete and by the time you revise through the work, your time is already gone. The nine months programme was like you are doing two Master’s degrees. So for the standards, what we passed through there was very tedious.
Every year the Law School graduates 5,000 or more lawyers and many of them find themselves in law chambers where many are not well remunerated. Do you think this could be the reason why some are discouraged?
No. Once you pass through the Law School, you are sent to the world to become independent; to apply yourself. In applying your skills, you get clients. I take myself as an example. Two days after I graduated from the school, I set up my own chambers. All I did was where I had difficulties, I ran to senior lawyers to teach me. If I had no job to do, I go to court to watch proceedings. There is no day you go to court, you don’t learn one principle of law and by the time you apply them to the cases you have, there is no way you will not have more clients because your clients will be impressed and they will talk about you and you will have more clients.
The Law School certificate is a meal ticket. And that is to charge fees. If you decide to charge moderate fees, you will retain your clients. What I think is wrong with young lawyers is that they want to be paid jumbo salaries; of course it’s not done anywhere. Every lawyer needs money. How do you buy your books? Do you take your fees to pay salaries instead of developing your chambers? No. The contribution you make as a senior lawyer is when you give young lawyers access to your materials, access to case clients. This way they are exposed which may inspire other people to hire them. What you do to a lawyer is to give him the enabling environment to actualise his dream of becoming an advocate.
Also, there are arguments that some lawyers appear to have nothing to do because of their inability to engage in what is termed ‘rural practice’?
You see, the legal profession is like any other profession. You go to where it favours you; if rural practice benefits you, of course. There are lawyers in the rural areas. I handle matters in the rural areas. Like now I am just coming from Keffi and it is not Abuja. You don’t have to set up a chamber in the rural area. Every lawyer is a rural practitioner. Any lawyer that you brief and the subject of your case is in the village, he will do the case in the village. Legal practice is legal practice so far as it is within the country; even outside the country, you can practice.
Do you know we don’t even have enough lawyers in this country by my analogy? The population is over 160 million and I don’t think we have up to 100,000 lawyers. Now compare that to the ratio of 160 million when every family or group of five persons is entitled to a lawyer just like they are entitled to a doctor. So we still need more lawyers. And out of the 100,000 lawyers, a certain percentage are in the official Bar. Very negligible few are in private practice. Others are in corporate practice. Some are in public service. So you have very few advocates so that there is room for every lawyer. So I don’t believe in the school of thought that any lawyer should pay another lawyer.
There is the ongoing debate that the Attorney General of the Federation should be separated from the Minister of Justice. What is your stand?
I also believe in that separation because as an Attorney General of the Federation, the AGF should concentrate on legal matters while the Minister of Justice should concentrate on administration. You cannot merge the two.
The bulk of work in that single office will overwhelm the capacity of the occupier. The Minister of Justice does the work of every other minister. And he does the job any other minister does not do. As an attorney general he goes to court to represent the federal government, he could handle cases if he chooses. It is the combination of two ministries.
What is your position on the delay in the passage of the Criminal Administration Bill before the National Assembly?
If the bill passes through it is going to impact a lot on the quick dispensation of criminal trials. The greatest problem we have in criminal trials is the statutory stumbling blocks. If that bill is passed it eases the tension on the stumbling blocks.
Is the government doing enough in the anti-corruption fight?
No. I don’t think they are doing enough. My reasoning is this: If there is a blanket implementation on the statutory provisions on corruption, notwithstanding whose ox is gored, it would be a step in the right direction. But what I see now is selective implementation of the provisions of the anti-corruption law. So what I see is the government only chases those they are not comfortable with. Those they call their political boys are covered.