Human Rights Lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has disclosed how he stopped the conversion of the Lagos Law School into hotel during the military era.
Falana said this while speaking in support of the establishment of additional campuses of the Nigerian Law School across the six geo-political zones of the country.
He spoke before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, chaired by Senator Opeyemi Bamidele.
He stopped the decision to covert the institution to an hotel by getting a court injunction.
He said: “It is important to clarify certain fact: the Council of legal Education Act was enacted in 1962 for the creation of one Law School.
“No where in the Act that it was ever thought that we are going to have a multi-campus institution.
“It is important for our colleagues to realise that in 1999, we had six batches of students who had no place to go.
“They contacted me and I had to go court.
“The Law Building of the Law School in Lagos had already been sold to a businessman who wanted to turn it to an hotel when the school moved to Abuja.
“It was only one campus.
“Not until I went to court and we got an injunction restraining the government from selling the Law School in Lagos.
“When the (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo regime came on board, we now thought of what to do.
“That instead of having two campuses, why not make it a multi-campus so that we won’t create another problem asking everybody to come to Lagos or go to Abuja and that was how we have a multi-campus Law School.
“It was not the idea of the Council of Legal Education.
“It was done by circumstances.”
Stay ahead with the latest updates! Join The ConclaveNG on WhatsApp and Telegram for real-time news alerts, breaking stories, and exclusive content delivered straight to your phone. Don’t miss a headline — subscribe now!
