A bill seeking to establish additional law school campuses across the six geopolitical zones was passed by the senate on Tuesday February 8.
The bill was passed after a report presented by Chairman of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti) was considered.
The proposed legislation is sponsored by Smart Adeyemi, senator representing Kogi west.
If the bill is also passed by the house of representatives and approved by the president, it will increase the law school campuses from six to 12 in the country.
The new campuses approved by the senate include;
Kabba Law School Campus, Kogi (North Central); Maiduguri Law School Campus, Borno (North East); Argungu Law School Campus, Kebbi (North West); Okija Law School Campus, Anambra (South East); Orogun Law School Campus, Delta (South-South); Ilawe Law School Campus, Ekiti (South West), and Jos Law School Campus (North Central).
The existing law school campuses are located in;
Lagos (South West), Abuja (North Central), Yola (North East), Kano (North West), Enugu (South East), and Yenegoa (South-South).
Speaking on the Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters on the Legal Education Act (Amendment) Bill, 2021 on Tuesday, Bamidele said the establishment of the new law school campuses will address “the exponential increase in the number of law graduates from our universities and foreign ones, coupled with the backlog that existed over the years”.
He added;
Existing campuses are overstretched and are not enough to accommodate thousands of law students graduating from the universities.
Meanwhile, after the bill passed second reading in October 2021, Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, had accused the senate of trying to “frustrate” the efforts to establish a law school in Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital.
However Bamidele, chairman of the senate committee on judiciary, had said Rivers state rejected the offer to host a law school campus, which prompted the move of the facility to Bayelsa.
The lawmaker had said;
Legal education should not be politicised. I don’t think there is an attempt by anyone to politicise legal education. Members are expressing their opinion.
Rivers was first offered to host a law school campus. It was because of the rejection that it ended up in Bayelsa.
