Kola Ibrahim
 Published
September 28th, 2008
By October this year, some law graduates will be marking
two years of dashed hopes of becoming barristers no thanks
to the unjust, anti-poor commercialization of the law school
programme. Just about few weeks ago, those students who had
thanked their lucks for crossing the debacle of over N200,
000 fees, were alarmed after learning that the fees have
again being hike by over 60 percent by the law school
management.
The current commercialization going on in the nation’s law
schools, which was accentuated about three years ago, is a
fall out of the failure of the Obasanjo/Bayo Ojo
administration to successfully privatize the law schools.
Then, notable pro-democracy activists like Chief Gani
Fawehinmi had resisted the obnoxious policy which made the
government to retreat. Since then, government has ensured
unmitigated commercialization of the law schools. As things
are going, the next set of law graduates of our ivory towers
will be asked to cough out nothing less than half a million
naira just to have practical bar training. This sum is more
than triple of what most of the law students will pay as
fees for their five year programme in universities. Yet,
most of these students still find it difficult to pay fees
in their respective institutions as a result of the poor
financial state. It should also be added that this law
school fees do not cover cost of books (which are
exceptionally costly) and materials, project works,
sustenance, etc. Surely, current generations of students are
in real deep shit!
The law school fees hike is unjustifiable and indeed
ridiculous. It is unjustifiable because the law school
management / The Council on Legal Education (whose member
live opulently on the nation’s public resources) does not
take into cognizance, the economic reality in the country.
Also, law schools are public institutions which are funded
by the government from the collective treasury; therefore,
it is criminal for the law school management to
commercialize what should serve as public good. Education
(either ministry of Education or Justice) is a social
service which must be funded by government from collective
resources and not from the lean purses of poor students and
their parents. It is worthy of note to state that the law
schools’ management/Council on Legal Education could not
account for past fees and allocations as the law schools
lack basic facilities especially living facilities while
students are made to provide all the materials which
ordinarily should be provided by the schools’ managements.
Worse still, the students are not allowed to express their
view as any view considered dissenting is censured.
It is a known fact that the per capita income in Nigeria is
less than $500 (less than N60, 000) while workers’ wage is
averagely less than N40, 000 per month. This is aside the
fact that most pensioners are living in absolute penury
while the so-called small scale entrepreneurs are finding it
extremely hard to survive the adverse economic conditions.
Yet, this set of people constitutes the absolute majority of
the nation’s working population. With this scenario, the
attempt of the law school management to continually hike the
schools’ fees is deliberately meant to ensure that only the
children of the very rich who constitute just one percent of
the nation’s population (most of whom earn their income
through legitimate and illegitimate looting of the nation’s
resources), have access to quality education and
subsequently quality lives – another euphemism for
neo-liberal ideology of the survival of the fittest.
This commercialization policy is ridiculous because those
who are advocating this policy are products of highly
subsidized education during the 1960s – 80s welfare states.
It is ironical that while the like of Obafemi Awolowo et al
who toiled to get educated, ensured free and highly
subsidized education for current generation of ruling but
ruining class who are hell-bent in preventing poor young
Nigerians access to functional education. While all
statistics point to the fact that Nigeria is at the lowest
rung in human development indices, it is highly ridiculous
and unthinkable that our policy makers and administrators
will, through deliberate actions, continue the very same
policies that had put us into this current mess. Is it not
hypocritical that the same administrators that are mouthing
the need to deepen “the democratic experiment and rule of
law” can not bring themselves to understand that well
informed and educated minds, including lawyers are vital for
raising public awareness in a civil society?
According to reports, the management/Council on Legal
Education was said to have argued that law profession is not
cheap, thus those who want become learned minds must be
ready to pay for it. But our “learned” management forgot or
ignored the fact that, despite hundreds of thousands paid by
law school students, most of them graduate to collect
poverty wages, if at all they get employed, not because
their services are not needed, but because the neo-liberal
capitalist economy of survival of the fittest which has made
majority of the population impoverished, has turned those
who should be middle class to working class while sustaining
a tiny layer of moneybag lawyers. What then define cheapness
of a profession than this? One even expect the law school
management to understand the simple fact that what
determines quality of education has nothing to do with
school fees but the availability of adequate facilities and
friendly environment. If school fees are a basis factor of
quality, Nigeria would not have produced thousands of great
minds who passed through public funded schools. In fact,
since education has been commercialized and privatized, the
quality of education has completely dwindled as a result of
chronic under funding that accompany these policies, which
has led to decayed facilities.
What the law school management/Council on Legal Education is
doing should not however be seen as an isolated case in the
nation’s polity. It is indeed an organic part of the
government neo-liberal policies of commercialization and
privatization which tend to hand over public resources to
the already rich few while the toiling majority who produce
the resources are made to live in penury. It will be
recalled that the current hike is a continuation of the past
increments during the Obasanjo regime. The current nefarious
commercialization is an attempt to introduce privatization
of law school through the backdoor. What is being
implemented in the law school is also being implemented in
the public education. For instance, all the tiers of
government are united in commercializing and privatizing
education. While many state governments have started hiking
fees in the public schools, the federal government, through
the minister of education, Dr. Ajah Nwachukwu, has directed
public tertiary institutions to commercialize education by a
minimum of N40, 000. Consequently, many federal
government-owned tertiary institutions have started hiking
fees indiscriminately even when previous fees collected from
students, and public resources expended on these schools
have not been accounted for as most of these institutions
still lack basic teaching and learning facilities. This
clearly shows that the current Yar’Adua government is a
continuation of the ruinous past despite all its mantras of
rule of law.
Nigerian students, especially law students must resist this
policy. They must pressure their organizations to lead civil
actions to stop the policy that will jeopardize the future
of law students. Furthermore, Nigerian students must join
hands with the workers’ movements to stop the onslaught
against public education and the poor masses in general.
They must force government to commit public resources to
public education because Nigeria’s resources, if judiciously
used could provide functional and free education for all,
while also developing social infrastructures without tears.
It is funny that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has not
deemed it fit to resist this policy while other students’
organizations especially the various law students’ societies
and NANS have maintained criminal silence. This is not
unexpected as most of the law students’ associations pose
themselves egoistically as elites despite the fact that most
of their members are poor. For instance, in OAU, the law
students’ association has become a tool for corrupt
governments officials (who are invited to public programmes
on campus) while its leaderships are either corrupt or
anti-student. This is a nature taken after their mother
organization, NBA. NANS on the other hands has become a pawn
in the chessboard of the various sections of ruling class,
who have contributed collectively to the pauperization of
the poor Nigerians. Gone are the days when Nigerian students
teamed up with workers’ and professional organizations like
NLC and NBA to defend common interests. Progressive Nigerian
students must rise to the historic challenge.
 Kola Ibrahim
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