THE Senate recently approved the establishment of seven new campuses of the Nigerian Law School across the six geopolitical zones of the country, in addition to the existing seven, making the total campuses to be 14.

Approval of the new Law Schools followed the consideration and adoption of a report by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters on the Legal Education  (Amendment) Bill, 2021.

THE seven additional campuses are in Kabba, Kogi State and Jos, Plateau State (North-Central); Maiduguri, Borno State (North-East); Argungu, Kebbi State (North-west); Okija, Anambra State (South-East); Orogun, Delta State (South-South), and Ilawe, Ekiti (South-West).

THE  existing law School Campuses are located in Lagos (South-west), Abuja (North-Central), Yola – Adamawa (North-east), Kano (North-West), Enugu (South-east) Port Harcourt Yenagoa – Bayelsa State (South-South) and Port Harcourt, Rivers state. The existing seven campuses accommodate 7,000 students.

THE Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Opeyemi Bamidele, said creation of the new school campuses was a legislative intervention to address “the exponential increase in the number of Law graduates from our universities and foreign ones, coupled with the backlog that existed over the years .

THE  intention of the sponsor of the bill, notwithstanding, some Senators, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the Body of Benchers and the Council of Legal Education (CLE) have kicked against  the Bill.

TO them, the dilapidated state of existing campuses due to neglect and insufficient funding should be of concern to all. According to NBA President Olumide Akpata, the move was unnecessary as the existing campuses were grossly underfunded.

ALSO , Chairman, Council for Legal Education (CLB)  Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, said the council was opposed to the move to create new Law School campuses. He said the CLE’s position was informed by the deplorable condition of most of the existing ones due to gross under-funding.

“THE  move by the Senate through this Bill is, more or less, subtle usurpation of the functions of the CLE,” he added.

WE welcome and commend the Nigeria senate for  the approval given for the establishment of additional campuses. The move would go a long at easing  problem of students traveling far distance for the mandatory course.

ALSO the issue of back log of students would become a story of the past. We have it on  good authority that many graduates of Law   had to queue for a year or two before they could go for the course. But additional campuses would solve the issue once and for all.

WE charge the federal government not to allow the campuses to exist alone  on the paper. It should endeavor to release money for their smooth take off. We also encourage more endowed Legal practitioners to assist the law school campuses to be on their foot . We also canvass that the proponent of this Bill should push for sufficient funds to be appropriated for their early take off,  improvements and renovation of facilities of the existing campuses.

THE Hope strongly believe that  financing new construction projects without properly maintaining the existing  ones is not only counterproductive but a potential waste of limited resources.

THE  Hope thus encourages lawmakers to therefore start discussing on how to inject more money for the repurposing and overhauling of campuses to bring them up to global and contemporary standards.

WE  again advise both the Council of Legal Education and Law school management not to throw quality to the dust bin all in the name of expanding and admitting more students.

WE  again advise the host towns  and their citizens to be friendly with the campus cited within their domain. They should not see the school as avenue to extort both the students and Staff of the school.