Nigerian Law School
Human Rights Activist, Hameed Ajibola Jimoh has petitioned the
Director General of the Nigerian Law School, Abuja.
In the petition sighted by TNL, Mr. Jimoh is requesting for the
immediate investigation, explanations, and or justification on
complaints of alleged extortion and usual restrictions on students
by the Lagos campus of the Nigerian Law School.
According to him, there have reports of usual extortion on
students by some persons in the premiere campus, and therefore
wants the authority to look into the issue before any other
necessary legal move is taken.
See Petition:
14th February, 2019.
The Director-General,
Nigerian Law School,
Headquarters,
Bwari,
Abuja.
Dear Sir,
HUMBLE REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION,
EXPLANATIONS AND OR JUSTIFICATION ON COMPLAINTS OF ALLEGED
EXTORTION AND UNUSUAL RESTRICTIONS ON STUDENTS BY THE LAGOS CAMPUS
OF THE NIGERIAN LAW SCHOOL
1. The above subject matter refers, please.
2. I am a legal practitioner and a human rights activist. On the
8th day of February, 2019, there was a report in circulation via
the social media, especially as posted on a
blog-www.nigerialawyer.com with the caption ‘Reign Of Extortion,
Restrictions At Nigerian Law School, Lagos’ where in some
reports/complaints were made against the Lagos Campus of the Law
School. The complaints/report which necessitates these humble
requests to you for an immediate investigation, explanations or
justification for the allegations. Please find a printed copy of
the published report/complaints accompanying this letter.
3. Furthermore, as can be seen in the said report/complaints,
the Lagos Campus of the Law School has been accused of the
following but not limited to the herein itemized complaints which I
humbly request for an immediate investigation into in order for the
Nigerian Law School to give explanation or justification if any,
before I embark on any further step(s) legally necessary against
the Nigerian Law School where necessary:
i. the institution’s authorities fleece the students financially,
and threaten them with query if they dared complain about their
situation;
ii. hardly bother to improve on the living and study condition
of the students in the country’s premiere Law School;
iii. insufferable condition to which the students are subjected
is peculiar to the Lagos campus of the School, since there is no
parallel of such in the other five campuses of the institution –
Yenagoa, Abuja, Enugu, Yola and Kano;
iv. about three months ago, the students were asked to pay N6,
000 in order for the School to print T-Shirts for them. This sum is
quite apart from the regular school fees of N296, 000 paid by the
students. But till date, neither have the T-Shirts been delivered
to the students nor the sum returned.
“We were made to pay extra N6, 000 which was not
part of our school fees,”.
“They said they will use it to print Law School T-Shirt
for us. But up till now, we have not seen any
T-Shirt.
“Apart from that, we are not expected to complain. They
told us that we have rights; but we
cannot exercise the right; that we should just
endure, because they said the Lagos campus is the best
Law School campus in Nigeria, since it produced 71 first class at
the last call to bar.
“Any time you talk, they threaten you that they will
issue you query. This is
because by the time a student has one or
two queries, he will not be able to graduate.”
v. The students also have axe
to grind with Mr. Nasiru Tijani, the Director, NLS,
Lagos campus, over the fact that the water being supplied to the
School is brownish and gives off an offensive
smell.
“The water here in the hostel is bad. It
is brownish. Every student in the Law
School must wear white. But we cannot wash our white shirts with
the water, because the water is brownish. We rather give it to
the drycleaner. And this increases our
cost and puts pressure on our pockets.”
‘He reveled that the students
were expected to only buy their texts from the School’s book-shop,
following which the book must be stamped.
The idea, behind this, he alleged, is that books not
so stamped risked confiscation by the School’s
authorities.
To rub it in, the textbooks bought from the School’s
bookshop are very expensive compared to those bought
outside.
“The textbooks sold in the Law School bookshop cost
an arm and a leg. A book which is sold for say N2, 000 outside is
usually sold for N6, 000 in the School’s book shop,” he
said.
“For example, the text on Civil Litigation costs N6,
000 in the School; whereas outside, the book is sold for only N2,
500.
“They actually don’t allow us to buy outside the
School. They threaten us with raiding our hostel. Since we are
usually in the class all through the day, there is no way we can
tell what is happening in the hostel, because we leave our keys
with the porters.
“So, in our absence they
can burst into the hostel and confiscate any textbook that does not
bear the School’s stamp. That is to let you know the extent to
which they’ve been able to restrict us and treat us like
kids.
“The lecturers tell us that we must not go outside
School bookshop to buy textbooks with the threat that they will
raid us.”
“They have however never made good that threat,” he
added.
He insisted that the lecturers or indeed the
institution’s authorities never made any attempt to explain to the
students why these restrictions were imposed on
them.
He said, “No, they gave us no explanations. They
only told us not to go outside to buy our
textbooks.
“Although they have not made good their threat, they
have said that one day they will raid our
hostels.
“As it is, we are expected to take our textbooks to
the class, especially the statutes. And those who sneak out to buy
the text-books take the books to
the class, but hide
them.
“And there is another way they hide
them, like when they are going to the class, they tuck
it into their luggage and lock it up.
“To a very large extent, about 95 percent of the
students are thereby forced to buy the very expensive books being
sold in the School’s bookshop.
“For example, there is the book “Law in Practice in
Nigeria.” it is authored by one Obi Okoye. There is another
textbook, “Corporate Law” written by one Badmus.
“In the Law School Bookshop each of the books cost
N6, 000; but outside, it is only N2500. In fact
there is no textbook being sold in the Law School
bookshop that costs less than N6, 000,” he further
alleged.
“Even ordinary statutes that are sold for N1, 000
outside are sold for N4, 000, N4, 500 inside the Law
School.’
vi. Speaking further on the living condition in the
School, the source said,
“In every room at the Law School
you have seven students. And you have 14 students
attached to one toilet and bathroom. This is because two rooms,
each of which carries seven students, are serviced by one toilet
and bathroom.
“There is a way the rooms of the hostels are built.
Two rooms are linked by a toilet and bathroom.
“I cannot say that is the original plan, but that is
the way we met it. But in
Abuja you have just two persons to a room. There, they
have good reading tables, in fact good
facilities. This is unlike what obtains in
Lagos.”
vii. Unlike any other campus of the NLS, students
are made to part with a whooping and unconscionable N1million to be
able to secure accommodation in the School’s so-called “Executive
Hostels.”
“I can tell you that there are hostels here where
you pay N1million.
“In the Law School here, we have two types of
hostels: the regular ones and the ones they call Executive
Hostels.
“You pay N1million for the Executive Hostel. It is
one room to a student at the Executive Hostel. The N1million is
outside the school fees. Yet this hostel that goes at the rate of
N1million belongs to the Nigerian Law School!”
viii. On whether the water supply situation in the
Executive Hostels is better than what obtains in the regular
hostels, at least given the extortionate amount students pay to
secure accommodation in them, he said, “It is the same
thing.”
He added, “And when we don’t have water or the water
supply runs out, they are also affected the very same
way.
“The water smells both in the regular and executive
hostels. So, every student, whether rich or poor, buys the water he
or she drinks.”
Despite these extortions and excesses, the students are
hardly allowed to enjoy uninterrupted accommodation in the hostels
for the full period they are in the School.
According to him, “I was surprised that the during the
Xmas period, the authorities shut the hostel, refusing to allow
even students who reside in far places in the country like Zamfara
from staying in the hostel, despite knowing that the cost of
transportation during the Yuletide is prohibitive, and also knowing
it was more economical for the students to stay
put.
“This is because, even if they travel, their parents
might not be able to afford giving them
more than N20, 000, which will even be consumed by transport back
to school.
“So many students who were living in faraway parts of
the country had insisted on staying in the hostel during the Xmas
season.
“But bluntly, the authorities declined their request,
saying everybody should go home for the
Christmas.
“Even those who paid N1million for the hostel were
also chased out.
“Now, in the next two months
we will be going for our externship, which will last
for three months: one and half month each
for court attachment and chamber attachment.
“Some students want to do their externship in Lagos, so
they could leave their hostel rooms in the morning to the courts or
the chambers they will be attached to and return later in the
day.
“But the Director here is putting his foot down, saying
‘no,’ that everybody must vacate the hostel during the three month
period of attachment.
“Before our set, the School had allowed the students to
stay in the hostel during the attachment period.
They were however made to pay extra N50, 000 for them
to be able to stay, notwithstanding the fact that they’d paid
school fees that included accommodation fee.
“Today however, they’re
telling us that we might not be obliged even payment of the said
N50, 000 unlike in the past.
“They say we are licensees and not
tenants; and so we do not have an option
in the matter – that a licensee does not enjoy exclusive
possession.
“The sad part of it all is that this is peculiar to the
Lagos campus of the NLS. In Abuja, as we were told, the Director
there even made sure that cows were slaughtered and used to prepare
food for the students you decided to stay over and spend the Xmas
in the School.
“But here we were ordered to leave!”
If the foregoing is anything to go by, then the
questions must be asked: Why are students of the Lagos campus of
the NLS subjected to these most superfluous and unconscionable
restrictions and extortions?
Is there a deliberate policy in place, which is furtively
promoting such discriminatory conditions of study and living
between the various campuses of the Law School?
4. Sir, I have deliberately extracted the above complaints directly
from the report so that the complaints can be easily discerned.
Other necessary complaints are contained in the said report
accompanying this letter.
5. Furthermore, what this letter requests is an immediate
investigation into all the allegations/complaints and to revert
back to me as soon as possible on any explanation and or
justification or report and decisions of the institution on its
findings. I therefore humbly recommend that any person found to
have corruptly enriched himself and or misconducted himself or
herself and or extorted the students among the various staff of the
Lagos Campus of the Nigerian Law School should be dealt with
accordingly.
6. Nevertheless, I am of the humble view that extorting students
on the campus is an act of financial corruption which I urge you
Sir, to place necessary restrictions on to preempt any of such
occurrences, assuming the allegation of financial corruption is
false. And the issue of payment for T-shirt should be investigated
to ensure that students who have paid for same are not denied its
provision. Also, the use of campus facilities ought to be equally
available to students on campus which is a government-owned
institution, without any discrimination. So, I urge you to
forestall any inclination of discriminating among students in the
provisions and or enjoyment of campus facilities. Furthermore, the
I humbly recommend that the allegation of bad and unhygienic toilet
facilities and water in circulation as well as overcrowded
occupation of hostel rooms is part of the welfare that the
institution is urged by this letter to improve in order to avoid
any ailment of students or the contract of communicable diseases.
Also, the issue of reading materials on campus in my humble view
ought to be optional as to the convenience of students to choose
whether to purchase his materials on campus or not. There should be
no threat or intimidation or blackmail of punishment for anyone who
fails to buy his materials on campus. In my humble view, compelling
students to buy books on campus with consequences for failure to do
so would have been contrary to the aims and objectives for
establishing the institution. To the best of my knowledge, the
Nigerian Law School was not established for the sale of books or
other materials rather adequate legal trainings for the students
undergoing their trainings should be paramount to the management of
the institution. Furthermore, I implore the management of the
institution to build on a more cordial relationship between the
students, the management and the institution in such a way that
confidence and competence are built in those students.
7. Finally, the Nigerian Law School remains my pride and I would
not overlook such report that alleges the institution with the
above enormous complaints, without taking steps such as the step
that I have taken by this letter to hear the side of the
institution on the whole saga.
8. While I await your further correspondence on the entire
complaints, please accept the assurances of my warm regards.
9. Yours faithfully,
Hameed Ajibola Jimoh Esq.
Principal Counsel/Human Rights Activist.