● Osigwe backs 3-year LLB, Prof Chukwumaeze wants NLS abolished; CLE DG calls it “balderdash”
Far-reaching proposals to overhaul Nigeria’s legal education dominated the 2026 Legal Education Summit organised by the Nigerian Bar Association, with calls to scrap the Nigerian Law School and cut the LLB programme from five years to three.
The Council of Legal Education, the statutory body that regulates legal education and runs the seven Law School campuses nationwide, was left on the defensive as stakeholders clashed over the future of professional training for lawyers.
—“Five years in university is unnecessary” – NBA President–
NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, argued that students spend too long studying law.
He said reforms must “consider the desirability of the present five-year length of study for the law degree, the course content of the university education, the course content and thrust of the Law School, the possibility of licensing private law schools or legal education practitioners, the requisite qualifications for sitting for a Bar Finals examination, etc.”
Osigwe maintained that keeping a person in law faculty for five years will not improve quality.
“The practical and focused content of university education will achieve better results even if it lasts for three years,” he said.
He suggested only core subjects should be compulsory for Bar Finals: constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, tort, contract, land law, equity and trusts, and the Nigerian legal system.
Citing England’s three-year programme and Buckingham’s two-year model, Osigwe added: “This will no doubt be a welcome relief for many law graduates who are increasingly finding it difficult to pay the Law School fees, not to mention clothing, feeding, and shouldering other financial burdens.”
—VC Chukwumaeze: “Law School has outlived its usefulness”—
The summit took a controversial turn when Imo State University VC Prof Uchefula Chukwumaeze, SAN, said the Law School should be scrapped.
He recommended that CLE limit itself to setting standards for Call to Bar while accredited university law faculties handle training.
“If we are to talk about legal education, we must examine its foundation. Take the United States of America, for instance — the difference between them and us is that there is no Law School. There is also no Law School in the UK. Universities teach while the relevant law bodies accredit and examine,” he argued.
Chukwumaeze proposed a seven-year model: five years for Bar Part 1, sixth year for Bar Part 2, seventh year for internship. “WAEC conducts exams — it does not teach. NECO conducts exams — it does not teach. The Medical and Dental Council, COREN, ICAN, and others conduct exams; they do not teach,” he said.
—CLE, Law School push back–
The proposals drew immediate fire from NLS and CLE leadership. Director-General of the Nigerian Law School Dr Olugbemisola Odusote dismissed the scrapping campaign as “misplaced and against the interest of legal education”. She warned that allowing universities to train students for seven years then call them to Bar would “do the profession more disservice”.
CLE Chairman Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, was blunter: “Legal education is not an all-comers affair… You cannot compare becoming a lawyer with taking WAEC. What we are doing is reforming our legal education and not destroying it.” He flayed the comparison with WAEC and JAMB, insisting coordination of legal education should not be left open.
—NBA pushes skills-based training—
Osigwe recommended expanding legal clinic education to combine substantive law with practical skills. He also suggested future options for virtual and computer-based B.L. training modules to cut costs of in-campus training, given rising fees and living expenses and the Law School’s admission backlog.
Both the Law School and CLE have yet to respond to the agitation for reducing the five-year LLB. [Rewritten report sourced from Vanguard]
