Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt
The Director General of the Nigerian Law School (NLA), Professor Olanrewaju Onadeko (SAN), has lamented that some lawyers are now in the habit of sitting for examinations for students in the law school.
He said some had already been caught in the act and the students involved awaiting disciplinary measures.
Onadeko made the disclosure in Port Harcourt yesterday while presenting the report of the school at the on-going 56th annual general conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
“Some lawyers were caught sitting as surrogates for students at the Nigerian Law School. In other words, they were caught writing examination for students at the school,” he said.
He however, did not disclose the number of lawyers and students caught in the act but said the students involved had been sent to NBA for appropriate actions.
He also urged the NBA leadership to take serious and drastic actions against such erring legal practitioners to serve as a deterrent to others who may want to follow similar path.
Also speaking on the incident, a legal practitioner with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Rotimi Jacob (SAN), frowned at such an occurrence.
Charging NBA to take serious punitive measures against those lawyers caught in the act, he said, “such lawyers should be punished after the due process had been followed.”
In his reaction, the outgoing NBA President, Mr. Augustine Alegeh (SAN), also condemned the attitude of such legal practitioners, but added that the Bar had not received such a report in the past two years.
Alegeh however, said such a practice was not in the best interest of legal education in the country, adding that the matter would be handled by an appropriate committee when the report was eventually received.
“We have not received any report of such incident in the past two years. However, there is an appropriate committee of the NBA to handle the matter when the report is received,” he said.
