By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
House of Representatives has sought an intervention with a view to reducing what it described as exorbitant fees in the nation’s law school.
The House, yesterday, mandated its joint committee on Justice, Tertiary Education and Finance, to interface with Director General of the Nigerian Law School, the Council for Legal Education, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and the Ministers of Justice and Finance, as well as other relevant stakeholders over the matter.
The committee, which report is expected within six weeks, also has the mandate to, through the interface, ascertain the challenges and requirements of the law school, the reasons for the exorbitant fees being charged, and the possible solutions to the problem.
The resolution was fallout of a motion jointly sponsored by Hon. Mark Gbillah and three others, which was unanimously adopted by members, expressing concerns on the inability of most Nigerian law students to attend the law school due to the high fees involved.
Gbillah, who moved the motion on behalf of his colleagues said it was alarming for “the exponential increase in law school fees over the last couple of years to a mind boggling basic school fees for the 2016/2017 session of N250,000 and N295,000 for Bar Part I and Bar Part II Nigerian law graduates, respectively, besides additional compulsory payments which increases to between N320,000 and N350,000”, among others.
According to him, it was more alarming that an institution which is being funded by the federal government appeared to have been without any resolve to assuage the suffering of majority of Nigerian law graduates, who cannot afford the fees.
“Given the prevailing economic circumstances, in the country and the insistence by some legal luminaries that the profession is elitist and the training capital intensive, it is imperative for the federal government and stakeholders to stop paying lip service to the problem and initiate an emergency national discuss to safeguard the future of the noble profession”, the stated.
