The House of Representatives has begun examining the prolonged dispute over the admission of law graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) into the Nigerian Law School for Bar training and examinations.
The intervention followed a petition by a group of affected NOUN law graduates, under the aegis of the ‘Backlog of Law Graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria’, urging the House to intervene in the matter.
The petitioners alleged that thousands of NOUN law graduates had been unable to proceed to the Nigerian Law School despite completing their Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programmes.
They put the number of affected graduates at more than 5,000, saying graduates of other Nigerian universities had continued to proceed to the Nigerian Law School and qualify for the Call to Bar.
The petition was considered by the House Committee on Public Petitions, which invited NOUN and the Council of Legal Education (CLE), the body responsible for the Nigerian Law School, to explain the circumstances surrounding the dispute.
Speaking during the committee’s proceedings, the group’s Public Relations Officer, Chibueze Kenneth Obochi, referred to a list of 1,883 graduates submitted by NOUN during an earlier engagement with the authorities in 2019.
He argued that the figure did not represent all affected graduates, noting that students who had already been admitted before the university stopped admitting new students into its LLB programme should still be allowed to complete their studies.
“As of 2015, when the National Open University was advised to stop admission, we had already started the programme,” Obochi said.
He said the affected graduates had documents, including matriculation numbers, to establish when they were admitted into the programme.
“We are of the opinion that justice and fairness shall prevail over this matter,” he said.
NOUN did not appear before the committee during Wednesday’s hearing but submitted a letter explaining the absence of its vice-chancellor.
The letter, signed by the university’s Registrar, Oladipo A. Ajayi, said the Vice-Chancellor was away on an official assignment and requested another date to appear before the committee.
