Stop Admitting Law Students, Lawyer Tells NOUN

A Port Harcourt-based lawyer and civil rights crusader, Barr. Chijioke Agi, has urged the  National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) to stop admitting students into its Faculty of Law until   the issue of admitting its law graduates into the Nigerian Law School is resolved.
He said until the issue is resolved, the  fate of its law graduates would hang  in the balance.
Barr. Agi, who made the remarks while speaking with The Tide in Port Harcourt last Monday explained that in the 1990s, the Council for Legal Education abolished part time programme in Law in  Nigerian universities in the bid to check half-baked lawyers and expressed regrets that the introduction of Law the in curriculum of NOUN, was a re-enactment of the old order.
He said the legal tussle between NOUN students and the Council of Legal Education in the Federal High Court was yet to be determined .
According to him, “until the legal battle between NOUN students and Council for Legal Education is determined, NOUN should not admit students to that Faculty”.
This is because to become a lawyer, the law graduate must pass through the Law School. It makes no sense that one is a law gradicate yet, not a lawyer”, he stated
Barr. Agi remarked that though the NOUN’s 10 Faculties were accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC), the other faculties are running without hitches except the law Faculty.
It would be recalled that the President Obasegu Obasanjo’s administration established NOUN as a Federal Government’s Special Project in line with the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
But the recalcitrance of the council of Legal Education over the admission of NOUN law gradates to the Nigerian Law School has put paid to the university’s efforts at training law graduates.

Chidi Enyie