By Dele Sobowale

The story has been told of four lazy friends – Somebody, Anybody, Everybody and Nobody – with a task to be performed. Somebody said Anybody can do it; Anybody said Everybody should do it. In the end, Nobody did it.” Anonymous.Ask any of our leaders of thought – Pat Utomi, Bolaji Akinyemi, Hassan Kukah etc — what are the missing elements in our search for economic, political and social development.

Cross section of candidates during an exam

Virtually all of them would include in their list of top ten – lack of strong institutions. It is difficult to disagree totally. There is probably no institution in Nigeria today which can be called strong.

But, we have them. And four of them – Nigerian University Commission, NUC, the Council for Legal Education, CLE, the Nigerian Law School, NLS, and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, as well as certain universities – through acts of commission and/or omission, have been wasting the lives of thousands of young people embarking on law career, as well as the hard earned income of their parents guardians and sponsors.

The latest announcement that those studying law at the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, is the last of such collective dereliction of duties by institutions responsible for the process of producing lawyers in Nigeria should condone.

One of the things admirable about America is the demonstrable fact that some individuals and publicly-spirited lawyers, derisively called “ambulance chasers” have taken up great institutions in order to obtain justice for masses of small people who could not challenge the power institutions. Ralph Nader fought for safer cars when he took on General Motors, which in the 1960s was the largest company in the world.

Other lawyers have taken up the defence of those who suffered from smoking and forced the cigarette manufacturers to place warnings on their packages; yet others have fought to ensure that malpractice suits can be brought against doctors and hospitals for the negligence of their staff and institutions. One can now even sue his lawyer for errors which result in loss of case.

Here in Nigeria, a patient is operated upon and carelessly killed and nothing happens – especially if it is a poor person. If we truly want justice to be done to all in Nigeria, these atrocities must stop. And, there is no better place for us to start than the institutions producing the lawyers for Nigeria.

We need a few lawyers to emulate them and to act on this matter.  If ever there is time I regret not reading law, this is it. This would have been a case to take on either gratis or on contingency basis.

Taking young law aspirants, putting them through the meat-grinder of JAMB, university law education for five years, only for the NLS and CLE to throw them out like “rotten minced meat” is not only unethical but should carry penalties for the institutions concerned. Somebody must pay for that pain and anguish visited on thousands of our youth and their parents and for the dreams busted and hopes dashed.

Each of these institutions, by not taking the extra step which involves issuing warnings to aspirants for law education contributes to their woes later. For example, what prevents JAMB, after listing universities offering law from asterisking those with only provisional approval? The NUC publishes the list on its website, and the Commission thinks it has done its duty in a country where computer literacy is very low and not everybody has access to computer.

The Nigerian Law School and CLE also feel their responsibilities start and end after the students have laboured for five years and are then told they are inadmissible to the NLS. What stops them from publishing twice a year the list of universities or programmes whose students are, or are not, admissible? Finally, when will all the stakeholders force the NUC to limit the number of years a university can be allowed to function on “Provisional Approval” status?

Perhaps one reason that has not been done is the incestuous relationship between the universities, the lawyers selected to go for accreditation, the part-time lecturers at many of these universities, such that closing down many of them will amount to economic suicide for the lawyers.