In this interview the immediate past Director General of the Nigeria Law School and Vice-Chancellor of Baze University, Abuja, Prof. Tahir Mamman (SAN), speaks on various issues that plague the study of Law in universities and its practice in the larger society. VIVIAN OKEJEME was there
Quotas system law violation
It is a game of demand and supply that is causing the problem. First of all, a lot of universities don’t obey the quota given to them by the Law school. That is actually the beginning of their problems.
A university is given a quota of 50 students, but the university goes ahead to admit 100 students. So, when they qualify, what do you do? Then it becomes a struggle.
Before I left office as the Director General of the Law school, we tried to enforce that by clamping down on some universities. There are two universities at the moment which we were able to exert that kind of measure on which is University of Abuja. Right now, the university is not admitting students because we stopped them from admitting students pending when the clear the excess number that they have.
So, if the Council for Legal Education can come down very firmly on institutions which violate admission quota, which will send a very strong message for compliance.
But again, I don’t know for how long that can be because there is also an issue about the number of universities. So many have come on board, there are more private and state owned universities now than the federal government universities.
When they come on board, one of the early courses they want to do is Law. So, if they have all the requirements, you can’t deny them the accreditation. But it is something the council can look at and then say, within the first five years, you should not start an LLB programme until they are sure of carrying on with the programme.
Just as a matter of preparatory stage. And then much more frequent accreditation visits may help in ensuring standards; in ensuring that universities stick to quotas given to them.
Then the Open University is another problematic area. Of course, the Council and the Body of Benchers have banned online LLB programme and part-time programmes. The Council has to be firm on that and insist on that
Law school graduates
Certainly, there have been noticeable problems in the quality of graduates of Law and generally speaking of education in Nigeria. This is partly because of the foundation, right from the primary school in particular the public schools, where problems of teachers, infrastructure and a lot of distractions facing a lot of students at that level.
So, these are the products which move up into the universities and then when you also check the universities, there has been too much of quantitative development.
We have had too many universities over a short period of time. Now, when you have so many universities, certainly you cannot have the same number of staff to meet the requirements of these universities, because to get a qualified trained staff it takes a long period.
For instance, talk about a staff that has a doctorate degree which is the basic qualification for lecturing in the university, it takes a long time. So, you have a very few trained people being chased by so many. Invariably, that will affect their attention to details and availability to provide sound education to the students.
Secondly, we have a problem with the structure of the curriculum in the universities. Right now, what we have is Basic Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS), set out by the National Universities Commission (NUC), which all the universities must meet. But in a lot of cases, the BMAS itself is not enough.
So, universities need to add more to that, and I suspect that a lot of universities are not even able to implement BMAS within the spirit that it is actually developed. So, people just provide a very minimalist implementation of even the BMAS itself.
Curriculum restructuring
In a very formal way, it doesn’t because we have this archaic, to me, idea that we have to separate training and academic level which is done in the university from the vocational level the Law school does.
So, there is no interface between the two of them and in the current training regime in the world now, that is no longer the practice. The practice now is to train lawyers the way doctors are trained; integrate, research, professional development with academic development together. That is what is being done, and there is some movement towards that through clinical education and debatable court practice.
So, there is that development towards integrating the practice into academic training of students in the universities. But now, it is not compulsory. So, you find students graduating without any practice skills, and without sufficient exposure to skills and ethics.
This ethics we are talking about, not much of it is taught at the universities. Just a bit of it at the introductory level 1 and a bit at the 500 Level under jurisprudence and then much more robust at the Law school, but that of the law school too we do integrate ethics with all the programmes not to make it just a stand-alone course.
But as you know, the duration of the Law school programme is just one year. Students are in residence barely for six months and then they go on attachment and come back. So, the opportunity for internalising ethics is very short.
And then the level of what happens out there when students graduate. There is a saying that, “you cannot divorce somebody from the society where he lives.” Our commitment to ethics and morality as a society is very low.
So, when students graduate from law, even with the little knowledge of ethics they have, they become overwhelmed by what they see around themselves.
I remember when I was the DG of the Law school, each time students came back from their internship, they used to say: “Sir, what you people are teaching us is different from what we are seeing in chambers and out there. You talk about separating clients’ accounts from chambers account that is not what we see.”
The Law students see lawyers operating the same account; collecting clients’ money and putting it into their own account. There is simply no accountability to the client and then they see all sorts of sharp practices happening in the profession. So, what do you expect them to do?
And then, a lot of young lawyers go out there and there is no employment; there is a huge problem with employment. Even those who are employed are paid very little amount of money.
As a lawyer, from what some of them told me, somebody pays you N10,000 per month to live on. I mean, you know that that is not a living wage. How much will the person pay for fare and accommodation let alone to eat and dress?
So, when you have this kind of situation, it leads people into a lot of desperation. And that is why some of us have been agitating and advocating that Law graduates should be paid living wage; no matter what senior lawyers should try to pay junior lawyers minimum living wage. And if they do that, that will minimize tendency to cut corners. But unfortunately, some of the ‘big’ guys are all part of the game.
Law school and industrial action
Well, it is a professional institution so it is not supposed to be going on strike. Not that it does not have issues, it does. But more importantly, it is attributed to good administration by those who have been managing the law school over the years. They have been able to anticipate and address most of the issues which usually cause problems at the law school. And of course, appreciation on the part of the staff too, that it is not a place where strike should be applied because it has this multiplier effect on so many things.
So, there is this responsible conduct on the part of staff of the Law school. Therefore, it is the combination of these tree things.
Foreign students
From my experience, what I found with them is cultural change. But more importantly is the mode of instruction over there is different from what obtains here.
Abroad, instruction is more learner-centered; it is more interactive and then there is a lot of Internet learning and a lot of flexibility too. For instance, if a student is not around for a lecture, the thing is recorded somewhere, and then he or she can come and play it on a webcam and watch it which I think we don’t have here. And then the physical environment too can be a bit challenging. Over there, either you live in a hostel or a residence, where all the facilities: water and light are there. You don’t have any hassle, but here, these are very major challenges but lot of them have been adjusting and perform very well.
As a lawyer, from what some of them told me, somebody pays you N10,000 per month to live on. I mean, you know that is not a living wage. How much will the person pay for fare and accommodation let alone to eat and dress?
