The senate has passed a bill seeking to establish six more
law school campuses across the country.
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 bill was approved after Opeyemi Bamidele, chairman of
the senate committee on judiciary, presented a report.
The proposed legislation is sponsored by Smart Adeyemi,
senator representing Kogi west.
The additional campuses approved by the senate are to be
established in Kabba in Kogi, Maiduguri in Borno, Argungu in Kebbi, Jos in
Plateau, Okija in Anambra, Orogun in Delta, and Ifaki in Ekiti state.
The existing law school campuses are located in Lagos,
Abuja, Adamawa, Kano, Enugu and Bayelsa.
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”.
“Existing campuses
are overstretched and are not enough to accommodate thousands of law students
graduating from the universities,” he added.
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.
But 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.
“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,” the lawmaker had said.
“Rivers was first
offered to host a law school campus. It was because of the rejection that it
ended up in Bayelsa.”
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