23112022

More documents

Recommendations

Info

22— Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2022 Abuja central law school for Nigeria - archaic (4) THE WAY FORWARD: IN the past few weeks, I have surveyed the process of bar licensing in frontline common law jurisdictions in England, Canada, the United States, Australia, India, and Kenya. It is clear from this survey that Legal Education has moved beyond the obsolete system of having a centralised Law School. Because society does not remain static, the process of legal education in Nigeria cannot remain static and must evolve in accordance with international best practices and contemporary realities. Today, the legal education system in Nigeria faces existential challenges that cannot be addressed simply by opening many branch campuses of the Nigerian Law School. To address the current challenges that impact the quality and relevance of legal education in Nigeria, our bar licensing process will need to be wholly reformed to provide new entrants into the profession with the world-class practical skills and technological competencies required to take on the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. A survey of the bar licensing process in frontier common law jurisdictions such as England, Canada, the United States, Australia, India, and Kenya clearly shows that legal education has progressed beyond the outdated system of having a central law school t h a t administers vocational b a r training programmes in large auditoriums at its branch campuses. Other common l a w countries have seen The Council of Legal Education in Nigeria should play the role of a regulator that sets the standard for the provision of legal education in Nigeria the value in opening the bar training process to accredited private service providers with the required facilities, ICT infrastructure, and resources to conduct personalized and practiceoriented training that enable learners to absorb practical legal skills in a selfpaced manner. As efforts continue to update and reform the Legal Education (Consolidation Etc) Act, what is required is that like the Bar Standards Board, BSB, in England, the Council of Legal Education in Nigeria should play the role of a regulator that sets the standard for the provision of legal education in Nigeria. In addition to its current role in accrediting and supervising universities and law faculties that provide LL.B. education, the Council of Legal Education should also have the authority to licence and accredit private service providers to provide vocational training for bar aspirants beyond the exclusive preserve of the Nigerian Law School. Such service providers, especially universities which have reputable Law Colleges and advanced ICT infrastructure, should be licensed to train law graduates for 12 months, after which they will take a Joint Bar Examination moderated by the Council. In addition to accrediting the service providers and administering the Joint Bar Examination, the Council of Legal Education will set the criteria for the curricula and mode of instruction for the bar course; set standards for the infusion of practice-oriented courses and examinations by service providers; and the continuous monitoring evaluation and renewal of licenses of the service providers. With this proposed arrangement, law graduates from Nigerian universities will be able to select reputable colleges or faculties of law of their choice with up-to-date facilities and faculty members of international repute for their post-LL.B. bar training course, and then write their call to bar examinations without having to be residential students in any law school as is currently the case. Paucity of funding This way, the problems of paucity of funding, poor facilities, and inadequate accommodation space would have been solved. It is common knowledge today that there is not a single one of the existing campuses of the Nigerian Law School that has the modern equipment, libraries, internet facilities, E-libraries, and modern ICT infrastructure needed to deliver practical and experiential vocational training for all Nigerian law graduates every year. This situation has resulted in some law graduates having to wait for years to be admitted to the Nigerian Law School, and even when admitted, the inadequate infrastructure and facilities at the campuses reduce the opportunities for practice-oriented skill acquisition. It, therefore, makes absolutely no sense, to create more mushroom campuses, not least for political expediency. The training of lawyers in Nigeria needs to be immediately decentralized in line with international best practices. Universities and institutions with world-class faculty, training facilities and ICT infrastructure should be licensed to provide the hands-on opportunities for practice-oriented skills' acquisition. Furthermore, joint bar examinations can then be conducted in line with the current testing arrangements for JAMB, WAEC, NECO, ICAN and CIB examinations. By so doing, the perennial challenges of inadequate quality of legal education and infrastructure, and lack of relevant skills training to meet with the ever-changing demands of the modern world, will be comprehensively dismantled in a holistic manner through competitive legal training that benefits from private sector innovation and efficient service delivery. *Please send your comments and suggestions to my email: president@abuad.edu.ng. Its good governance, stupid By MOHAMMED HARUNA SECTION 22 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, imposes an obligation on the media to hold government accountable to Nigerians. “The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media,” the section says, “shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.” The chapter in reference is Chapter II and it is titled “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy”. It is in twelve sections, beginning with Section 13 of the Constitution and ending in Section 24. The chapter says the country shall be a state based on the principle of democracy and social justice. It lists a number of fundamental objectives for the state, including political, economic, social, educational, environmental, cultural and foreign objectives.It also says the nation’s ethics shall be “discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance and patriotism. Last, but not the least, it imposes a number of duties on the country’s citizens, including abiding by the provisions of its constitution, respecting the dignity, rights and legitimate interests of others and declaring income honestly to appropriate and lawful agencies and paying tax promptly. My initial thought on reading my topic was that I should talk about why and how the media should hold the politician accountable to the public. However, on second thoughts it occurred to me that this responsibility should go beyond the media alone as enunciated in the constitution. Instead, it should be everybody’s concern. Even then, the media as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, must lead the way, if only becausetogether as print, radio, television and the internet it is the main source of news and information in society. While it is important that the media and the rest of society hold politicians accountable to the rest of society, politicians are not the only ones that should be held accountable to society. Beyond politicians, every group in society should be held accountable to its society. After all it is not politicians alone who are saddled with the responsibility for making decisions on behalf of society. Big business, big labour, big pharma, and, of course, big media, etc., all of them make decisions that affect people. Therefore, we must go beyond the constitutional enunciations for the media to hold Government accountable to the public and hold every institution whose decisions and actions have impact on people and society to account for their decisions and actions. As the leader in holding, not just politicians, but all other groups, accountable to the people, the media must be guided by knowledge, ethics (integrity, courage, professionalism, impartiality, etc.) and civility in language, if only because intemperate language, generally speaking, but name calling and stereotyping, m o r e specifically, tends to alienate rather than engage. The first step the media must take in holding politicians accountable MOHAMMED HARUNA to the public is to be knowledgeable about politics and, of course, everything else it reports. This should start with being knowledgeable about the rules that guide our politics. The most important of these rules is the country’s constitution, especially since the constitution says the only legitimate form of government is the elected one. The second is our new Electoral Act 2022. The third is the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC’s) Election Regulations and Guidelines, 2022. There are, of course, many other documents, including Manuals for Election Officials, political party Constitutions, Case laws, etc. but thesethree constitute the most important elements of the country’s Electoral Legal Framework. Our constitution suffers from a poor image, but in spite of its flaws (something no constitution in the world is free from) the image, including the fact that, with over 75,000 words, it is rather too longish (by comparison, the United States is no more than 8,000, including all its 27 amendments) is not altogether deserved. This poor image is based on the claim that it was written by the military and, because of that, it is only federal in name but unitary in reality. Both claims are false. The military has never written any of our constitutions, certainly neither the current 1999 Constitution nor that of 1979, which the former is essentially a clone of. Both were written by civilians, mostly elected, with a few nominated. The drafts of both were subjected to public hearings in all the nooks and corners of this country before they were promulgated into law. Yes, the military held a veto over both but in promulgating each into the country’s supreme law, they hardly changed their substance. As for the claim that the constitution is unitary in fact, if not in theory, nothing could be further from the truth. This claim has led to the popular fallacy that what Nigeria needs is “true federalism.” A federation is simply a system of government in which a written constitution distributes power and responsibility between a national government and a number of state or regional governments. However, no two federations distribute power and responsibility the same way because the historical context of each country is different and, therefore, the distribution that is appropriate for one country may not be appropriate for another. Only three days ago, i.e.,on November 15, a national daily, published an editorial titled “Restructuring should dominate 2023 campaigns” in which it referred to the country’s government as “unitary federalism”. It then went on to blame every ill that has afflicted Nigeria on our constitution. Consequently, it said, “The calls that true federalism be the main agenda (of The military has never written any of our constitutions, certainly neither the current 1999 Constitution nor that of 1979, which the former is essentially a clone of the 2023 General Election) should, therefore, be heeded.” T h e newspaper highlighted three areas, namely, minerals, police and prison, in which it claims the Federal Government dominance of legislation, and with it, the distribution of revenue, has spelt doom and insecurity for the country. There may be some truth to this claim but without debating its merit I think it ignores the historical context of the country’s current power sharing formula. Even more importantly, it completely ignores the fact that good governance has little, or even nothing, to do with the quantum of revenue available to a government. Indeed, if anything, it can be argued, from Nigeria’s historical experience, that the more money people have, the less frugal and more reckless they tend to be. As I argued more than ten years ago in one of my columns (October 2, 2012) all the quarrel with our constitution is essentially a classic case of a bad workman quarrelling with his tool. Of course, our constitution is not perfect. None is. But in spite of its imperfections, if we had kept faith with it, Nigeria would have been in a much better shape than its current sorry state, given the vast oil and other revenues it has had since former Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, famously, (some would say infamously), declared that money was no object for the country but how to spend it. As a manmade instrument, all constitutions can always be improved upon. However, only a bad workman, which your typical Nigerian politician is, will contemplate changing his country’s constitution the eight or so times we have since our Independence in 1960. Compare this to the Americans who have not changed their Constitution since 1787 when they first wrote it and since 1789 when it started functioning. Instead, they have amended it only 27 times or so since then. Continues online:www.vanguardngr.com •Being a paper at the Media Roundtable on “The Accountability Imperative: Why and How to Hold the Politicians’ Feet to Fire” organized by FrontFoot Media Initiative, Lagos, at Bon Hotel, Ikeja
Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2022— 23 I made N1.6bn for gov’t as ED, LITFC—Lucy Ajayi From a deficit in 2017 to a world class International Trade Fair in West Africa, Lucy Ajayi, immediate past Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex, LITFC management and board, has not only raised the standard of the Trade Fair but also ensured maintenance of the complex . Having served for four years, she speaks on her experience and how she was able to make N1.6bn for the federal government during her tenure. What was your experience serving as Executive Director at the International Trade Fair, in an industry dominated by men? My assignment in office started with the task of repositioning the Trade Fair complex. Eight months after the appointment, I was able to repossess my office. Many thought I would not be able to end my tenure well because I drove out a furious litigant, the other concessionaire, but I have added value to the trade fair. I believe I have written my name in gold. It has been more than a year since your tenure ended at LITFC, yet awards and recognitions are pouring in as if you are still in office, what is the secret? I am surprised too. It only shows that Nigerians appreciated my stewardship. I thank them all. My greatest achievement there was to return LITFC back to the government from a concession that •Lucy Ajayi went wrong after nine years of non remittance to the government. My greatest challenge was how to remove the former concessionaire out of the complex for eight months during which I couldn’t access my office and was operating from Abuja. The stakeholders cooperated in paying their annual ground rents. We were able to lease some hectares of land lying fallow for their cluster expansions and that raised our annual revenue too, since those idle lands now had monetary value placed on them, rather than rearing reptiles and other animals and paying to clear the forest. Were your targets met? There were lots of rehabilitations that took place including the administrative block, repossessing of some areas that were already occupied by traders. We had fully taken over construction of the bridge. We took over the 100 chalet motel, although not in full operation and rehabilitation of roads. I did almost three quarters before I left and the final one is in progress because I have already signed out the 5km road to the Chinese Company CCECC and the construction is in phases. Two phases have been successfully completed and they are on the third phase which is dependent on last year’s budget. The fourth phase according to the Chinese’s report will be done based on the year’s budget. I am sure by the time they complete the fifth phase, the 5km road would have been rehabilitated. Over the years, the trade fair had never felt the impact of governance. There was a lot of training and re-training for our staff members amidst the meagre overhead that we received, I think I have done well, considering I took possession after eight months so all these were done within three years and a few months. How experienced were you. Did you ever work in a market before? It was a great experience. I have never been trained nor have I had an appointment as a CEO of a market before. When the appointment came, people called it a federal agency but I saw it as running a market, because the concessionaire had changed it from its original structure of a trade fair to a market and we are trying to bring back the glory and sanity. It can’t take just three and a half years to restore sanity but I tell you, the stakeholders are really awesome. They show understanding and they are only protecting their business and trying to obey the government’s laws and policies. Holding sway in a male dominated environment, how •Lucy Ajayi did that go? Trade fair was not the only place I worked in. I had worked in a different environment where men were predominantly occupied. Many petitions were written against me questioning my position, yet I scaled through. When the merger came up, out of the 18 member committee that Buhari instituted, I was the only woman. The petitions were so many, yet I am still standing. Perhaps I was dragging what seemed for men. I am grateful to President Mohammadu Buhari, who spotted me and gave me a chance. I thought I was coming to a corporate environment but I became a market woman because you can feel their pains and gains, manage them as well before bringing government policy and make it as friendly as possible. Does that m e a n If the new administration can consider a Public- Private Partnership, PPP arrangement, it will make more money there were n o challenges? There were trials but most times I do not look at the challenges, maybe that is why I could pull through. Rather than looking at the challenges, I see solutions and how to address issues appropriately. Many times, I received distress calls on fire accidents; yet, we were able to pull through. Maybe the feminine aspect of my life played out. Just take it or leave it, women bring their warmth into every situation. If you have a committee without a woman I feel it is going to be very strict; even at the merger when the men were quarrelling I used to beg them. I was like a tea girl to all of them. They were like my fathers too, and when you give them respect I think it is reciprocal. For example in the Trade Fair, starting from arrears rather than starting from on a new leaf was a big deal. The concessionaire left nothing so you have to go back to take care of the past like me. I had so many inherited litigations but if I didn’t meet litigations, probably, I would have done better. I made the sum of N1.6bn for the federal government in three years and prior to that time, the few stakeholders that were very magnanimous with their payments could only turn in 44million. That was what the government was making per annum then, all because the stakeholders felt it is better for them to pay to the federal government rather than pay to the concessionaire. The records are there, it was 44million. I would however have done much better if the structure was already in place, and if we were not thinking of concessioning the place again, because that is causing a lot of misunderstanding and some things are lying fallow. The mini stadium is there, the halls are there and the motel. If the new administration can consider a Public-Private Partnership, PPP arrangement, it will make more money. It is said that the Igbos are much more in population than other ethnic groups at LITFC, and that due to their republican nature, they are ‘unmanageable’ but they were loyal to you. How did you do it? The Igbos are not unmanageable. It’s a misconception. They are only protecting their businesses, which is not out of place. I must commend them in the Trade Fair, they are awesome. They were loyal because I was humane to them.
Page 1 and 2: C M Y K The Council of Legal Educat
Page 3 and 4: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER, 23,
Page 5 and 6: PDP CRISIS: How IBB, GEJ, others mo
Page 7 and 8: C M Y K Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMB
Page 11 and 12: Y Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23,
Page 13 and 14: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2
Page 17 and 18: Popular reactions to Charles Soludo
Page 19 and 20: Inflation: We will continue to rais
Page 21: Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2
Page 31 and 32: BADA I, formerly known and addresse
Page 33 and 34: By Ozioruva Aliu ENIN CITY—THE Ed

23112022

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?