By Abubakar D. Sani, Esq

Introduction

Critics of the on-going move by the Senate to expand the number of campuses of the Nigerian Law School have argued that it’s seemingly laudable objective – curbing the back-log of entrants to the School several years after graduating from University, amongst others – can be achieved by upgrading and expanding the facilities in the six existing campuses. Given that the impetus for the change came from a non-lawyer, Senator Smart Adeyemi, many have read political motives into it. This was apparently confirmed when it emerged that the capital of his Kogi West Senatorial District – Kabba – along with the hometown of the Deputy Senate President (Orogun, in Delta State) have been earmarked to host two of the six proposed new campuses of the School.

Issues

What is the truth? Which of the two sides is correct? Even if facilities in the existing campuses are sub-par/grossly inadequate, should the panacea be horizontal or vertical or a combination of both? Above all, regardless of the solution, what is the appropriate legal provision, if any? Is amending the relevant Legal Education (Consolidation, etc) Act (the LEC Act) the best – or even the only appropriate – way of going about it? What does that law itself say about the Law School? Does it envisage a multi-campus institution, as is presently the case?

Who, as between the National Assembly and the Council of Education, possesses the power to determine the need for additional campuses for the School, and/or their location? Given that – as some commentators have rightly pointed out – none of the other major professional occupations have comparable institutions to the Law School (their training being wholly done in Universities), is the existence of the Law School itself a legal aberration? Can the training it offers be conducted in Law Faculties of Universities, albeit suitably equipped and strengthened? What is the experience or legal framework for multi-campus tertiary public education in Nigeria? Can it, in any way, guide the prevent debate or does it impinge on its legal, if not constitutional, validity? So many questions. We shall attempt a few answers.

First of all, Section 1(2) of the LEC Act provides that the Council of Legal Education shall have responsibility for the legal education of persons seeking to become members of the legal profession. Section 2(5) of the Act provides, inter alia, that “the Council shall have power to do such things as it considers expedient for” the purpose of performing its functions. Section 4 of the Act provides that “the Attorney-General of the Federation may give the Council directions of a general character with regard to the exercise by the Council of its functions”.

It is clear that the Senate’s move to increase the number of Law School campuses is informed by the foregoing provisions of the LEC Act. This is because, without amending the Act, the Senate (and by extension the National Assembly) would, obviously, be impotent to effect the change. But is that power limitless? Can the National Assembly micro-manage public tertiary education in Nigeria in the manner it seeks to do by directly prescribing the establishment of Study Centres or Campuses? Is that the intention of the framers of the Constitution? Is there any precedent for such legislation? Does it, at all events, constitute such an egregious legislative overreach that it is invalid, if not under the Constitution, but in relation to any other Code, such as the African Charter? We shall see . . .

History of Multi-Campusism in Nigeria

Several Nigerian Universities have historically operated from more than one campus. These include the present University of Jos (which started as a campus of the University of Ibadan); Bayero University, Kano (which started as the Kano campus – then known as Abdullahi Bayero College) of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; the University of Calabar (which started as the Calabar Campus of the University of Nigeria); the University of Ilorin (which was the Ilorin campus – called University College – of the University of Ibadan). Beyond these, however, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka presently operates multiple campuses in two different States Aba (in Abia State) and Nsukka and Enugu (in Enugu State).

What is common to all these institutions is that, even though they were established by Acts of the National Assembly, in none of their enabling statutes did the Assembly directly prescribe the locations of their different campuses. Not even that of the National Open University of Nigeria (which has 57 so-called Study Centres which are actually campuses in everything but name). in other words, in each of these cases, the Assembly – wisely, I submit – left the question of the geographical location of their individual campuses (and, even the decision to establish them, in the first place) to the Governing Councils or Boards of the particular institution.

I submit that for the National Assembly to purport to do so in the case of the Law School is simply illegitimate and is ultra vires because it violates the right to equal protection of the law under Article 3(2) of the African Charter as validly domesticated in Nigeria. See NNPC vs. FAWEHINMI (1998) 7 NWLR pt.559 pg.598 @ 616, and I.G.P vs. ANPP (2007) 18 NWLR pt. 1066 pg.457 @ 500C. In the latter case, the Court of Appeal upheld the supremacy of the Charter over Acts of the National Assembly.

Conclusion

Suffice it to say that, what is good for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Whilst the National Assembly is empowered to regulate the legal profession, it must do so in an even-handed manner, vis-à-vis other tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Since the Assembly does not dictate to those institutions as to when and where to cite additional campuses, it cannot and should not do so in the case of the Law School. That decision should be solely that of the Council of Legal Education – acting in concert with the Attorney-General of the Federation.

Abubakar D. Sani, Esq.,3rd December, 2021