Sam Amadi, a lawyer and former Director-General of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, has urged the Federal Government to scrap the Nigerian Law School.
He made the call at the 2023 endowment launch for the ‘IgbaBoyi’, an Igbo apprenticeship scheme, by Igbo lawyers under the umbrella of Otu Oka-Iwu on Friday in Abuja.
He noted that the country needs to rethink its whole framework.
“So, I think that we need to rethink the whole framework of Nigeria. In my view, the law school is failing. It is no longer serving its purpose,” he said.
“The law school is designed to provide technical, practical education.
“So the question I ask is: what are they providing? My view is that purpose is best served at law firms.
“Many lawyers who go to law school do not practice.
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“What is the law school providing for our young graduates?
“The law school is not rigorous, either academic or practical.
“So my view is, we must focus on universities to give robust academic training.”
Meanwhile, The management of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, and some students of the Faculty of Law of the institution are now trading words and accusations over the exclusion of 70 students from those being mobilised for admission into the Nigerian Law School where they are to undergo further training and be certified to practice law.
The affected students, Vanguard learned, are those who graduated from the school last year during the 2021/2022 academic session.
The grouse of the students is that they are being sidelined while those who graduated early this month are being selected to go to Law School.
They added that it would mean they would spend extra year to go to the Law School when they didn’t have any carry over or any reason that should delay them further.
Some of the students, who spoke in confidence, alleged that some untidy yardsticks were employed to determine those to go to the Law School.
However, the Dean, Faculty of Law, UNN, Prof. Ifeoma Enemo, speaking in a phone chat with our correspondent, said there was no wrong doing on the part of the management.
“Early last year, the affected students were supposed to sit for their final papers and we were ready to organise that. However, the students said they should be given more time to prepare even when they were told that nobody knew what could happen. It was at the time the ASUU strike was looming. Unfortunately, the strike started.
“The strike lasted exactly eight months. In the course of the strike, the Nigerian Law School wrote to us around July last year asking for the list of our students to come for their programme. Our quota is 220 students. We had to start calling some students who were yet to go to the Law School for one reason or the the other but who have got over such issues to come. It was in the midst of the strike and eventually, we only got 29 students.
