The Council of Legal Education in Nigeria has said that it was pushing for law study as a second degree in Nigeria to deepen the practice and solve unemployment among lawyers.Chairman of the Council, Emeka Ngige, who stated this in Enugu, at the weekend, during the 2024 grand reunion of the 1989 law class of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka,
Anambra State, explained that available facts indicated that certain Nigerians, who have distinguished themselves in law practice, had studied other courses before studying law.
The occasion was also to celebrate the pioneer dean of the faculty, Prof. Christian Okeke, who was recently endowed with a professorial chair by the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). The class donated N5 million in support of the endowment.
Ngige said: “What we are saying is that we have many unemployed lawyers, and part of the reason is that they were forced to study law by their parents. So, we need a situation where people are not forced by their parents to study law.”
This will help them focus on their mission and vision. “If you ask a student who is just 19 years old to go and study law, upon graduation, you will see that he will not practice. Some of them will go into other businesses. If you look at the people who have distinguished themselves in law practice in Nigeria, most of them studied other courses before law. These include Justices Chukwudifu Oputa, Nnaemeka Agu, Fidelis Nwadialor, among others. They all studied mathematics and what have you before law studies because they came as mature students and now practice law. So, we are saying that in Nigeria, there are too many unemployed lawyers. So, let’s get mature minds to study the
course and be employable.”
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