▪︎States conditions for admission of NOUN Law graduates into Nigerian Law School In 2022
The Body of Benchers has made a decision on the fate of graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)
This is pursuant to the resolution of the Body of Benchers at a meeting held 1:30 pm on Thursday in the Supreme Court complex, presided over by O.C.J. Okocha, SAN. Chairman, Council of Legal Education, Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, confirmed to TheNigerialawyer (TNL).
Meanwhile, in a telephone conversation with the Chairman of the Council of Legal Education, Chief Ngige, SAN, he noted that the approval was subject to some conditions.
“It has been approved subject to conditions and the conditions are that it is restricted to 1,883 students from the Open University and then, secondly, they will be subjected to 1-year remedial programme at the Law School.”
However, he added that the one-year programme was targeted at exposing them to some rudimentary laws where they would undergo another round of teaching on the core Law courses: Law of Evidence, Introduction to Nigerian Law and Land Law, among other courses.
Besides, he further stated that any of them that couldn’t pass part one of the Nigerian Law School would go home from there, stressing that “their admission to the Law School does not seem absolutely automatic.”
“If you pass part one, then you go to part two, if you don’t pass part one, you go home,” he stressed.
Reacting to whether a student who failed can re-apply to the Nigerian Law School, he said it was not possible for such a person to apply again. “This means that if you fail, you fail out,” he said.
However, he noted that the approval was reluctantly made by the Council of Legal Education because there was this feeling that “undesirable elements” were being brought into the profession but they felt that since the National Universities Commission had given them accreditation without the concurrence of Council of Legal Education, that it would not be fair to punish them for relying on a government Agency’s accreditation, so to say.
Therefore, it was stated that the Body of Benchers had resolved that the Council of Legal Education would be liaising with the NUC “before accreditation is given to any University.”
In another development, he said that the approval was not meant to take effect immediately but “until 2022 because of the current set who have been caught by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.”
He said there was the need for the current batch to leave the Law School before the NOUN Law graduates could be admitted.
It would be recalled that the issue as to why NOUN graduates have been refused admission by the Council of Legal Education (CLE) was raised by the President of the NBA, Paul Usoro, SAN, at the December 2019 NEC meeting of NBA in Abuja.
Responding to the issue, Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, said that admitting the graduates of NOUN had been an inherent issue, stating that, “ab- initio, the Council being conscious of the standard of education, passed a resolution that part-time, evening law programmes and open law programmes is a no case, and therefore students with such educational background cannot be admitted by the Council Of Legal Education into the Nigerian Law School.”
However, he said the good news was that the incumbent Director-General of Nigerian Law School, Prof. Isa Ciroma has suggested that NOUN graduates be admitted into BAR PART 1 instead of BAR PART 2.
They would have to run the BAR PART 1 for one (1) Full academic calendar year as in place of 3 months, which foreign students use for the BAR PART 1, he said.
He further added that it was when a student had passed the BAR PART 1 that he or she would be admitted to do the BAR PART 2 and failing the exam, means not doing the Part 2 and would have no second chance of rewriting the BAR PART 1. (Source: TheNigeriaLawyer)
