The Legal Education Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has called for increased funding for legal education in Nigeria to enhance the development of practice-ready lawyers that can contribute meaningfully to the social and economic development of the nation.
These recommendations were made at the inaugural Regional Townhall Workshop on Legal Education held at the Imo State University, Owerri, IMSU.
Recall that as part of the NBA’s efforts to enhance legal education and practice in Nigeria, NBA President, Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, inaugurated the Legal Education Committee, NBA-LEC, under the leadership of Professor Damilola Sunday Olawuyi, SAN, Deputy Vice Chancellor at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, ABUAD, with the mandate to promote and advance functional legal education in Nigeria, especially through training sessions and conferences on modern teaching approaches.
In exercise of this mandate, the NBA-LEC introduced the Regional Townhall Workshop on Legal Education Series with the maiden edition held in South East region at Imo State University, Owerri.
The workshop recorded a huge turnout of more than 300 attendees. Key stakeholders, including the host of the event, the Vice Chancellor of IMSU, Prof. Uchefula Ugonna Chukwumaeze, SAN, Chairman of the NBA-LEC Regional Townhall Workshop Series, Prof. Chimezie Kingsley Okorie SAN, law teachers and students across universities in the Southeast, attended. Four institutions delivered presentations on the state of legal education in Nigeria: Abia State University, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Imo State University, and Enugu State University of Science and Technology.
While welcoming delegates to the Workshop, Chairman of the NBA-LEC, Professor Damilola Olawuyi, SAN, highlighted the growing demand to review legal education in Nigeria to meet global standards.
He emphasised the need to revise the curriculum and leverage technology to enhance legal education, ultimately transforming it into a more effective law practice that can compete globally.
According to him ‘There is also an urgent need to increase investment in learning infrastructure across our law faculties if we are to actively deploy technology-based teaching methods. Only few law faculties have functional ICT centres, modern teaching equipment, digital tools and libraries needed to instill contemporary entrepreneurial, technology and project management skills in law students. Government or the NBA alone cannot provide all the tools. We all can do something about this by giving back to our law faculties.’ the Learned Silk concluded.
The Vice Chancellor of IMSU, Prof. Chukwumaeze, SAN, emphasised the need for all stakeholders in Nigeria’s justice sector, including the NBA to support legal education by providing educational materials.
The Chairman of the Townhall Sub committee Prof. Okorie SAN also stressed the need for the NBA to be a bridge between the legal education and other relevant authorities in ensuring a strengthened legal education in terms of collaboration.
The ensuing roundtable discussions featured presentations by law teachers on the achievements so far and existing challenges that pose a threat to law teachers and students in law faculties. The reports expressed concern on the falling standard of law practice in Nigeria and the ethical standard depreciation, this was attributed to various challenges faced by law faculties, affecting the quality of legal education and the overall development of the legal profession. They sought increased collaboration with justice sector stakeholders to alleviate these challenges and improve existing standards.
Various challenges were highlighted by the institutions, including infrastructure deficit, poor remuneration of law teachers, excessive workload of law teachers, limited access to legal information and underfunding of law faculties, especially lack of funding to attend international and domestic conferences.
Despite challenges, some faculties showcased good infrastructure and upgraded law libraries from analogue to digital, especially contributions from lawyers and alumni.
While discussing the way forward, the Workshop commended the NBA leadership for providing the innovative platform to reflect on the way forward and called for the swift implementation of the NBA Legal Education Endowment Fund, which could go a long way in mobilising financial support for infrastructure and technology upgrade. While calling on law firms, companies and other stakeholders to contribute to the Fund, the Workshop also called for more joint research projects between NBA and law faculties, as well as tailored research programs and subsidised conferences for academic lawyers, as a way of incorporating theoretical and practical law aspects in the profession.
