Economic Confidential, May, 2009

INTERVIEW

Our Law School Needs N200mn Monthly or… - DG NLS, Bwari FCT

Born on the 7th July 1954 in Michika Local Government of Adamawa State, Dr Tahir Mamman attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he graduated with second class upper division in Law in 1983, and also had Second Class Upper at the Nigerian Law school in 1984. He had his doctorate degree at the University of Warwick United Kingdom in 1991.

After a career in the judiciary in Adamawa State for a decade, Dr. Mamman was at the University of Maiduguri where he held several positions including Head of Department Common Lawn and Acting Dean of Law and Chairman, students Affairs Committee. He moved to the Nigerian Law School as pioneer Deputy Director-General and head of the Kano campus before he was appointed, after a competitive process, as Director General of the Nigerian Law School. He became the first northerner to hold such an exalted position. He had served in various committees and panels at state and federal levels and has written numerous chapters published in various Law and other journals. In this exclusive interview with the Economic confidential, Dr. Tahir Mamman bares his mind on challenges of legal education in Nigeria.

Excerpts:

How will you describe the evolution of the Nigerian legal council training of lawyers to where it is today?

Well, I’ll probably start with the law school itself. It was agreed just after independence by the leadership of the country at that time that Nigeria needed to have its own system of legal education. Before then lawyers were going abroad to places like U.K essentially to qualify as lawyers and returning to Nigeria where they had no knowledge of Nigerian law and no knowledge of its legal background. Even though the legal system has a common ground across the world, there’s a local content peculiar to different cultures. So the federal government said we should have our own special system of legal education. That’s how the Council of Legal Education of Nigerian law school came into being. Since then, I think we have train so far about 90 thousand lawyers in the country, but of course you can be sure that only a third of those will be in active legal activities like legal practitioners, judges. A lot of them go into politics as you know lawyers produce the largest category of professionals in politics. Especially in the legislative arm which is quite interesting. And even in Industry, a lot of the captains of Industry are lawyers although they most often possess other qualifications. You find out that the more people know about law, the better the society gets.

In your own perspective what are the unique selling preposition that makes law so attractive which always brings large member of university students applying to study Law?

It depends on the societies where you come from but this probably starts with a common foundation. The common foundation is that when you have a lawyer the person is completely liberated. So, a lawyer is a person who is completely liberated. This is because he knows his rights and the rights and wrongs of governance and that of each individual. So a lawyer is a person who can meander his way in any society he finds himself and in any given situation that confronts him. As a matter of fact that is what makes a human being if he is able to know his rights. Secondly, the entire human society is regulated by law. How so ever, from creation even the way we were created was by certain applicable laws. God said let there be and it became. Its only when we came into being that medicine came in (general laughter).

Every civilized society is regulated by law and therefore a lawyer aids in its navigation and workings of the law. i.e. the interpretation of the passage of the bills in the national assembly. These are some of the selling points; really, I wouldn’t say there is anything negative about the law.

You have a decentralized system now before that there was so much agitation that a lot of people who were supposed to be trained were not given the opportunity into the law school. Now that there are different campuses, how do you manage the quality of the graduates?

It is quite challenging, surely, when you have the students even under the same roof there are challenges not to talk of when there are other campuses outside this one. But there are a lot of things we try to do in order to have a common standard. Admission process into the Law school is on a common ground we ensure that students admitted is based on their merits and are evenly spread across the four campuses, so that we don’t create a situation where those with first class and 2nd class upper are admitted into one campus. Secondly, we have a uniform timetable with similar curriculum. And then the lecturers go through appraisals from time to time through trainings that ensures commonalities in delivery of the curriculum. Then from the campuses, the lecturers coordinate amongst themselves to generate things that are synonymous with the entire law system. This is to do with examination questions, the markings, using similar barometer regardless of where the students come from or their grades. We have a conference marketing system in the law school where all the scripts go to unlike the university. All the lecturers and external markers work together using the same marketing schemes.

There’s this school of thought that feels that since lawyers go through professional training vis-a-vis a period of internship and the Law school. They ought to be excluded from the NYSC Scheme. What’s your take on that?

On the NYSC Scheme, the Nigerian Law School does not have any say on it. It is a government policy which stipulates that every graduate in Nigeria must go through it. Secondly law students actually don’t go on internship the way we understand internship on students of various other disciplines. We have some form of tactical training in the framework of what they do in the Law School. Internship would have been after they have graduated from the law school before practice, they go for 6 months to 1 year. But ours is just a part of the training process. They go to have a feel of what goes on in a law chamber and come back to write exams. Finally, in my own opinion the NYSC is a very wonderful scheme. Even though it is being overwhelmed at the moment because of sheer number of those turning out for service from the universities. But I tell you sincerely those who thought about the NYSC scheme did very well for this country. Unless because of the way things are not presently well in the political climes, like the other day a corper was killed in the Jos riot, hence the agitation to serve at one particular area of preference. But really a lot of people don’t know what they are missing in terms of exposure to other cultures and experiences within the different geopolitical zones. For the first time I found myself in the East was for my NYSC. When I was posted, I didn’t want to go initially but a friend encouraged me to go. I went there and it became a turning point for me. Because I had already experienced schooling in Yoruba land. In the former Western region Ifaki-Aiye Ekiti. It is a very unique experience to know what obtains in the other regions different from your own culture. When I was doing my post graduate overseas, each time the Igbo Association where gathering, I used to go and join them. When I am confronted that I am not an Igbo, I stand my ground that I am by experience. The same thing with the Yorubas. To me this could only be made so by the NYSC Scheme. Which I urge every graduate and parents to embrace.

On the Issue of rising cost of education with regards to the recent almost 100% increment of tuition in the Law School; people have been wondering why the government is not giving adequate financial support to the Legal Council. Are there no other dynamics to stem this tide which would make it easier for less privileged people to attend?

Honestly, my heart is all out for indigenous students and parents. Because for some of us this is a very delicate balancing to do. The constitution is there which provides education as one of the fundamental rights of the citizen. The Nigerian government has over the years tried to subsidize education which is free at a certain level. But at the tertiary level even though it’s subsidized, government is not taking the entire responsibility.  All that government has done is to simply allow the charging of tuition, now the same thing applies to the law school but we are entering a phase where, honestly, it has become impossible for this situation to continue. What is there is a clear need for the emancipation of education in general. Especially when UBE came in where monies running into millions is injected into the educational system. However, the national resources have not increased but rather it is diminishing. The prevailing situation is government’s response to allow private participation at a certain level. In the primary and secondary schools which have made a lot of significant difference because right now the public schools have virtually collapsed at that level. It is only the unity schools like Federal Government Colleges that are public institutions worthy of attending, the obvious evidence of such collapse is that you find somebody who has attended a public secondary school but can barely construct a right sentence. Teachers’ salary is really nothing to talk about. The motivation is not there. It is quite pathetic. But when you take a look at the private schools, they live in a different world altogether. That is not to say the proprietors are Santa Claus just dishing or doling out free gifts. They are heavily paid for. It is the same situation that is obtainable in the private universities which is unfortunate some are good in terms of standard but the bulk of them are nothing to write home about because universities require a lot more resources to manage as it were, than primary and secondary schools. Because one block in the university is enough to run a whole primary or secondary school. At this level, the government is at a cross road on what to do. It is not letting government universities to charge so much but things are not measuring up. No equipments for research, teachers are not well paid, no standard infrastructure as obtain in other countries less endowed. You go to a public university and you can hardly distinguish it from a secondary school. Those of us who had the good fortune of seeing universities elsewhere out of this shores, know we are really in a different world, really.

What about electricity?

Now, we talk about electricity as the bane of our economy because it is physical. When there is light you know and when there’s no light you know. But education is not tangible. It is more of a bane to our system than any one thing I know. Because it is not something you can see or feel. But it is more of a bane to our system than any one thing I know. Because it is the product of education that generates the ideas for the development we are all yearning for.

What is the better approach?

The approach of other countries that have made it is tripartite. One, they have this private sector driven system but at the same time they have the public driven education system which the government supports. Now even in respect of the private sector driven system, it is still a collaborative scheme between government, the parents, philanthropic and civil organizations.  These are the 3 agencies that run even the public institutions. They pay the tuitions and other supporting monies to keep their wards in school. Government provides the infrastructure and pays salaries to the staff. That’s the way its run in most countries in Europe and America. The private sector and civil society, they come in through endowments. Like Harvard and Yale, Harvard has over 50 billion dollars in endowment. Cambridge in U.K has over 6 billion pounds in endowment. That’s what is running these institutions.

As far as I am concern, the government has to face the reality squarely, at least create a bond for the universities. Let the government give the universities a ceiling of what to charge using the law of averaging while they augment with the rest as well as create a virile atmosphere for endowments from the civil societies, this to me can be the panacea for running education in Nigeria.

How do you relate that to our Law School?

Now, coming to the law school, there have been a lot of hues and cries in the last 2 years. Over what they call exorbitant fees. But the truth of the matter is that the Law School is a postgraduate institution, it’s a professional institution. It is the last line of defence, the last lap for some one to enter the legal professional. Now, we have a huge responsibility on these bases. The Law School has never or rather always ensured it is not found in the quandary the public universities are because it must have a standard which students most imbibe when they come here. That standard does require a bit of resources. For instance if you come into the system, we provide accommodation. It’s only two students per room here. Self-contain rooms. There are two other campuses that have up to four per room. In Abuja we provide Self-contain rooms.  We accommodate all the students on our four campuses. We ensure that students get water. As much as possible they have electricity. It is impossible to have 24 hour light but overall, there is no Law School Campus in Nigeria that students do not have at least 20 hours of light in a day. Without light, we can’t even run lectures. We train our staff just the way public organizations do, not just locally but abroad, periodically within every year. That is why the Law School budget cannot run on only what the government provides.

How much does government provide to the school?

What the government provides for the entire Law School every month is 11 million naira for running cost. This is for the four campuses. What we even get in the Abuja campus alone is not sufficient to cater for the electricity bill and water. That does not include diesel, just electricity and water. What we have in a month is an average of 1.5million naira. That is why the Council, when we were introducing a new curriculum decided to look into the tuition before then it was 140 thousand. The council put together a committee consisting of very eminent lawyers to look into the increment issue. They turned in their report and recommended that the Law School should be charging 346 thousand naira. But after due consideration and after taking into account the circumstances of most students and parents, we said lets just add a bit to what was obtainable. Hence the council added 80 thousand naira to the previous amount charged. We have continuously told students and parents that this is an accountable institution. You are our ambassadors. If you think you are not getting value for money tell us. All the noise you hear before students get registered dies down immediately they come in and see what we are doing to ensure a convenient atmosphere for their study. The Nigerian Law School is not an average University. We have a standard that has to be maintained. We have an international standard that must be kept. From here they are out of our hands but as long as they are here, the kind of values we want them to imbibe, we demonstrate it practically. If you say international standard for instance, in U.K students who attend similar law schools pay 50 Thousand pounds for tuition per annum. In the U.S. it is about 30 thousand dollars. When you talk about this disparity people tend to say we are in Nigeria but law is a universal application, you know. Those over there, who hear what we charge, find it unbelievable.

How much will the Nigerian Law School need to run the four campuses to the average standard obtainable internationally?

We should be talking about per campus. The running cost should not be less than 50 million naira. For the four campuses, we need 200 million naira monthly to effectively run the institute to another level of excellence.

Thank you sir.