The Director-General of the Nigerian law School, Dr. Tahir Mamman, has described as exceptional and exemplary the giant strides Afe Bbabalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) has taken in its short period of existence.
Mamman’s commendation is coming on the heels of tonnes of commendation and encomiums already showered on the three and half years old university by well-meaning personalities, including the Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie, who described the University’s Law College as the best in West Africa.
To complement the superlative job however, the Council of Legal Education boss urged the wave-making university to provide opportunities for its Faculties and students, particularly those in the College of Law, to attend both local and international conferences to prepare them for the work ahead.
He reminded ABUAD to pay particular attention to scholarship as it is the quality of graduates produced by the university that will make it rank with the world bests like of Yale, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Mamman commended the trail-blazing vision of the university’s Founder and Chancellor, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, and appealed to all well-meaning Nigerians to join him (Babalola), in his vision and crusade to reform functional education through quality education, service, industry, service and character as well as discipline to the advantage of humanity.
Mamman who led a team of other members of the Council on an Accreditation Visitation to ABUAD’s College of Law said it was incumbent on all lovers of Nigeria to emulate Babalola in this kind of vision which he said is capable of propelling the country into its desired destination, particularly as government alone cannot fund quality education.
Going into specifics, the DG emphasized the need for Nigerian universities to strive to produce innovative and creative lawyers in tune with the contemporary needs of the society.
By toeing this line, he believes Nigerian universities would be helping in the training of lawyers that would provide forensic solutions to disputes instead of seeing their clients as mere cash cows.
He added that it is in the pursuit and realization of this that the Council of Legal Education has been concerned and interested in the types of law programmes being run by universities, the infrastructures on ground and the quality as well as number of Faculty “so that we will be convinced, from the accreditation point, that the requisite solid foundation is laid for the training of lawyers”.
According to him, “Law depends on the quality of learning materials like books, libraries, teachers and an enabling and exciting environment which already exists here, starting from the welcoming allure of the university gate”.
In his remarks, Babalola appealed to the Council of Legal Education to consider an upward review of the number of students approved to study law in the model modern Centre of Academic Excellence if the multi-billion Naira facilities put in place in its College will not amount to a monumental waste.
Citing the retinue of facilities at the university’s College of Law, Babalola lamented that it is suffering from what he described as ‘underutilised physical and human resources’ because the approved annual quota of students to study Law is low compared to quality and level of facilities and infrastructures on ground.
His words: “With such facilities like 10 different classrooms, teaching laboratories, one Moot Court, two Law Clinics, state-of-the-art E-Libraries and physical libraries, a staff/students ratio of 1/16, E-software, Lexis Nexis and Compu Law among others which can conveniently cater for more than 1,500 students, we deserve to have more than the 80 students approved for us to avoid those facilities from wasting away”.
(Ends)
Tunde Olofintila
Director of Public Affairs.