Mushroom law faculties bane of legal education – Prof Oyewo

What are the plans for the 50th anniversary celebration of the NLS?The NLS and the Council for Legal Education (CLE) were both established by an act of government and they would both be marking the anniversary and contribution to the development of Nigeria. So the CLE set up a committee comprising the Director General of […]

What are the plans for the 50th anniversary celebration of the NLS?
The NLS and the Council for Legal Education (CLE) were both established by an act of government and they would both be marking the anniversary and contribution to the development of Nigeria. So the CLE set up a committee comprising the Director General of the NLS, Dr. Tahir Mamman, and some members of the council, all deputy directors and Emeka Obegolu from the NBA.
The committee has come up with what we call tokens of the anniversary and also the legacy projects of the anniversary.
Tokens of anniversary basically fall into those things that are commemorative, things like NLS ties and scarf to mark the occasion. The third category is the anniversary event which will be taking place on 26th-27th November, this year.
We have what is called the legacy projects which we believe should mark the 50th anniversary which will be the Private Public Partnership (PPP)  approach to the development of infrastructure in the NLS . The first port of call was to ask who are the crop of people who have benefited from the NLS in these 50 years?  Lawyers, because there is no lawyer who did not go through the NLS. So we approached the Council of Legal Education with the consent of the NBA to have NLS alumni.
How are the alumni going to support the NLS anniversary project?
They are contributing not only in terms of material development but also in terms of quality control and quality assurance. If you went through a particular institution, there is a particular standard that you know the institution for. So if you find a product of the institution getting lower, there is an obligation on the part of the alumni to communicate that to the institution. By so doing, the alumni are actually the end users of the product of the NLS. Of course there are other areas lawyers are used but a lot of lawyers get trained in law offices by the seniors.
In legacy projects, we have come to the realisation that  government cannot sustain the kind of development that is needed in the NLS.
Meanwhile, there are other spirited people who are interested in philanthropic contributions to the NLS. We came up with a need list of the various centres of the NLS. We have six law campuses – Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Kano , Adamawa and the Bayelsa  – these campuses produce the needs list not the NLS HQ at Abuja only.
 We need the assistance of the alumni in approaching the governors, people in each of the geo-political zones; it is most likely that an alumnus will be the attorney general.
If we have corporate bodies, it is likely that an alumni will be a director or a legal adviser. That networking which is done universally is what we are bringing in. If you look at the wealth in the alumni world, it is not small and we are going to tap into that in the legacy project.
Legacy project can also be done by a family who want to immortalize, such as the family of late Chief Rotimi Williams in Lagos, or any other campus to immortalise a personality who is not even a judge. The legacy project is to address the infrastructural shortfall in the NLS.
The last one is the event – inter campus football competition which finals will take place in Abuja. The Bar and Bench novelty football where high personalities are expected to play.
There will be presentation of two volumes of books and launching of the Law School fund so that we would not wait until another 50 years. This fund is to be managed independently of the NLS. There will be accountability and it will only be used for projects and not for running of the NLS, except where the donor says it should be used to buy computer or split units AC.
There will be a lecture by a QC and a SAN, on contemporary legal issues, there will be celebrations also.
What is the role of the NBA in this programme?
The NBA is a member of the council, basically, we are working together and that was why the NBA gave us a platform at the plenary session of the NBA AGC, in Calabar and also a session. The NLS, CLE, NBA are all the same set of people running this show, so it is a show for every member of the NBA.
The leadership of the NBA is 101 per cent behind this project.
Before now what were the alumni doing?
The NLS alumni has been doing a lot before now. It is only that it was not articulated, it was sporadic and ad hoc. Basically some alumni when celebrating their anniversary usually go to the NLS and donate to it. Each Faculty of Law also has fantastic relationship with the alumni. In UNILAG, our alumni support us. Having taught in UNILAG some of my students are now state governors. My students consist of governors, SAN, Justices of the Court of Appeal, so if you don’t treat those students well its sowing and reaping.    
Already the alumni is being celebrated without being formalised. So we have classes, in fact there is a particular class that has three governors. The classes will have projects.
What is your take on the declining standard of legal education?
This is due to inconsistent educational policy in Nigeria and funding of education so we cannot take legal education in isolation because legal education only harvests from what comes out from the educational system. You look at even primary education, in the West we went to free and qualitative education and in the secondary school we paid, in the dormitory seniors will teach you how to behave.  
You will find out that the life of a lot of young people coming into the university is not structured, they are lazy and still depend on parents to a large extent and then you will find out there is a policy of promotion without merit in the system.
Fallen standard is within a continuum, a frame work, so by the time you talk about JAMB you will see that JAMB is not sacrosanct, why was A/Level cancelled? Universities have no choice than to flow with this policy.  
The biggest problem we are facing in legal education is the proliferation of mushroom faculties of law. Facilities that cannot stand the test of time and the joke of it is that these same faculties will produce students and give them first class and second class and they will have an advantage in the market. The same students that will never pass in the higher standard universities. What we call accreditation of law faculties are all politicised. So basically in Nigeria standards are very difficult to enforce, by the time accreditation teams get to the community, the whole town is waiting because they don’t want their Law Faculty to be dis-accredited. So they will prepare feast as if it is a royal reception. Why?
There is a basic benchmark of academic standard we are supposed to use a lot of accreditation that are done are questionable and we also have funding challenge impacting on the staff, and student integrity. The reason the Council of Legal Education cancels evening law was that some faculties will produce first class from evening law and the main students with fresh brain to read law will have Second Class and then you will have about 10 old men who cannot read getting First Class.
However, there is a process of quality assurance and quality control within the profession. Unlike other areas, we have the NUC, the CLE with both of them performing and regulating the carrying capacity. This has helped otherwise you find some incompetent faculties training law students when they don’t have even two professors. And you have a faculty such as UNILAG limited to 280 students. So it’s a joke some faculties don’t have the personnel but have up to 200 students.
Should law be studied as a second degree course?
Anybody that wants to read law should have A/levels as the minimum entering requirement and that is the standard used in the UK because law is letters. Don’t let us use JAMB.