‘Nigeria Law School should be deregularised’- Prof Ojukwu
Prof Ojukwu
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The falling standard of legal education in Nigeria is becoming a great burden to some of the senior lawyers in the country such as Prof. Ernest Ojukwu (SAN). He was at a time, the Secretary of the Federal Governments Committee on the Reform of Legal Education.
In this interview with JOSEPH ONYEKWERE, he pointed out that the Nigerian Law School, saddled with the responsibility of training prospective lawyers before they are called to Bar, needs to be deregularised to allow other private institutions train law students. He also said the study of ethics must be introduced in the law curriculum in order to set the right tone for addressing the decline among other issues.
What’s your view about the falling standard of legal education and how can it be addressed?
It is frighteningly getting lower and lower. We need to push our educators and teachers to state the goal for our legal education. A goal that focuses on the development of competent lawyers conscious of social justice and ethical values. If we get the goal right, that will lead to the adoption and deployment of training methodologies that uses the best practices for legal education. Our legal education must therefore at all levels integrate knowledge, skills, competencies and values. It must be outcome based and learner-centred different from the mostly traditional teacher-centred education still being practiced by a vast number of law teachers. Our legal education must be clinical combining liberal arts approach with vocational and experiential learning approach. All these are generally lacking as at present. The Nigerian Bar Association must stand up and insist that the training of our law students must conform to these philosophies, goals and values. We would also need to create new and very strong Council of Legal Education that would act as a strong oversight body both for the training at the universities and at the Nigerian Law School. By now we should no more be talking about how to actualize a sustainable continuing legal education programme to compliment the foundational learning, development and growth of the legal professional in Nigeria.
How do you look at the future of legal practice in Nigeria in relation to the emergence of technology, ADR and globalisation?
It is challenging. Our response to technology and globalization has been very poor and this is traceable to the foundational problem of our legal education. Can you for example find one court in Nigeria that has successfully stopped its judges from recording court proceedings in long hand in 2017?
You advocate deregulation for the Nigerian Law School, where you once served as deputy director general. Can you explain how you think such should be done?
In 2007 the National Committee for the reform of legal education set up by the government of President Obasanjo submitted a report calling for the deregulation of the Nigerian Law School. I was Secretary of the Committee. I am happy today that the call for deregulation has also been made by the NBA Legal Professional Reform Committee headed by Chief Tony Idigbe, SAN. The deregulation involves demarcating the authority and functions of the Council of Legal Education from the Nigerian Law School. Give full oversight functions to the Council of legal education to accredit and monitor Law faculties and Law Schools. Under the proposal, other law schools other than the Nigerian Law School funded by the Federal Government, could be registered and accredited to provide training for those wishing to be called to the bar side by side with the Nigerian Law School. Both the trainees who will go the Nigerian Law School and those who will chose other Law Schools would have their training under the same curriculum of the Council of Legal Education and take the same examination administered by the Council of Legal Education.
There are some bills you helped to push before the National Assembly aimed at improving the fortunes of legal practice in Nigeria. What are the bills and what are they meant to achieve?
Oh yes I have been part of the team that produced legal practitioners bills, legal education bills and legal services commission bill that at one time or the other were sent to the National Assembly. I mentioned earlier that I was Secretary of the Federal Governments Committee on the Reform of Legal Education in 2007 and we submitted a Legal Education Bill to the then Attorney General of the Federation Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN who in turn sent it to the National Assembly. I was Chairman of the Law Reform Committee of the NBA from 2003 to 2004 and we produced a new Legal Practitioners Bill in 2004 under President Wole Olanipekun, SAN. 2007 when the bill of 2004 could not get any headway President Olisa Akpakoba SAN involved me in a committee that produced a Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Bill. It suffered set backs as a private members bill in the National Assembly. So in 2011 under President JB Daudu, SAN I was again involved in the drafting of three new bills that are today pending at the National Assembly. They are the Legal Practitioners Bill, the Legal Education Bill, and the Legal Services Commission Bill. Basically the Legal Practitioners Bill creates many disciplinary committees for the bar as against the present status of one Committee that is overburdened, gives legal backing to the mandatory continuing legal education programme of the bar and reviews the compositions of the Bar Council and other organs like the Body of Benchers and Privileges Committee to give them greater independence for efficiency and increase the representations from the Bar. The Legal Education bill demarcates between the Council of Legal Education and the Nigerian Law School so that the Council is better empowered to carry out its oversights of universities and the Nigerian Law School and deregulates the Nigerian Law School to have other law schools not established by the Federal Government to be recognized and accredited.
Source: Guardian Newspapers
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