"Governments are
best classified by considering who the “somebodies
are" they are in fact striving to satisfy."
But, it is not only
governments which we should ask the question. All agencies of government and
even Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), need to be asked the same
question - especially when their decisions affect other citizens. The National University Commission (NUC),
the Nigerian Law School (NLS), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB),
all Federal government agencies;
As well as the Council on Legal Education (CLE), which
is not an agency of government combine to determine the fates of those embarking
on law as a profession in Nigeria today. Perhaps the time has come when
Nigerians should be asking the question: "who are the
"somebodies" each of these organizations is established to
satisfy?"
Just as important are the
following questions: "are those the arms of society they should seek to
satisfy? And are they doing it?"
One way of looking at these issues is to go outside the profession. Elsewhere,
it is generally assumed that the consumers represent the "somebodies"
every organization seeks to satisfy - especially when the consumer, directly or
indirectly, has to pay for the goods or services provided. Since those
embarking on a career in law pay for the education, starting from JAMB to the
NLS, with information input from the NUC, it should be fair to assume that the
consumers to be satisfied are the aspirants.
Each of these bodies is
expected to organize its own aspect of the process in such a manner as to
ensure fairness to all concerned. Starting with JAMB, aspirants should expect
not to find listed a university whose law programme is not accredited. In the
case of "provisional accreditation" candidates should also be
informed how long the university had assumed that status. The reason should be
clear without elaboration. Aspirants need to know the risk they are taking by
applying to study law at a university without full accreditation.
In pharmaceutical
Marketing this is called "full disclosure" - which is placed in every
package of prescription drugs. All possible side-effects and contra-indications
are spelt out. The patient takes the drugs well-aware of the risks involved.
That is only ethical. Compare this with what occurs with aspirants for law
education in Nigeria. A university (name withheld out of sympathy for the
school) enroll students for over four years in its law programme - based on provisional approval.
JAMB lists it in its brochure without warning prospective lawyers of the status
of the university. Then, totally avoidable disaster occurs. In the middle of
the fourth year, the NUC asked the university to close down its law programme.
Several hundred students suddenly find, to their horror, that they were never
law students all along. Where does a Level-400 student start all over again?
Would the university refund ALL the tuition, and other fees collected from the
victims of what, in effect, was a grand scam?
Who will pay for this?
Only a totally unethical society would expect the victims to accept their
losses as an act of God when every step of the way to this tragedy was paved with
wilful conduct by government officials. If JAMB was derelict in its duties, NUC
is worse. Again, one should ask: who are the "somebodies" the
Commission wants to satisfy? The calamity which the NOUN episode represents is
only a tip of the ice berg where NUC's contribution to the destruction of
university education is concerned.
Accreditation, which
should have been a professional exercise sometimes has become
a goldmine for those sent to conduct the exercise. The Nigerian Factor crept in
years ago and it has never left. Last year, I visited one of the newly approved
private universities.
Conducted round the various prospective faculties, the
science departments were of the greatest concern to me. In the process, I was
introduced to the person charged with equipping the laboratories - who was too
eager to show me the museum pieces he called "ultra-modern".
Like a grown up man who stubbed his toe on a hoe, in front of younger people,
seeing that "ultra-modern" laboratory, hurt so much to laugh, but I
was also too old to cry. So, it is not the accreditation of law programmes of
universities that needs review; it is the entire process of accreditation to
stop Nigerian universities from sending out graduates employers condemn as
unemployable.
Irrespective of who else
NUC might be serving, it is not serving students well. The disasters we have
experienced with law education (abolition of part-time courses, allowing
unlimited period for "provisional accreditation" etc.) could not have
occurred without NUC allowing them to get started in the first place. For the
unfortunate victims, the monumental errors of the NUC had been costly -
financially and morally. They have actually ruined lives.
Again, who will pay for
this?
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