Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday said he has written to Council of Legal Education (CLE) over the purported refusal of CLE to admit graduates of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) into the Nigerian law school.
Obasanjo spoke while addressing members of NOUN Law Students Association of Nigeria (LAWSA), National Executive as well as its Alumni and NOUN Alumni, who paid him a courtesy visit at his Hilltop mansion in Abeokuta, Ogun state on Tuesday.
It could be recalled that the meeting was a sequel to Obasanjo’s visitation to the NOUN Abeokuta Study Centre on 27th August 2014, when the school management sought his intervention on the law student’s admission into the Nigeria Law School.
Attending the Nigerian Law School is mandatory for law graduates before they are call to the Nigerian bar.
The former President who graduated from NOUN and currently running his master and PHD programs in the institution, insisted that NOUN was not running a correspondence programme but a full time study adding that he receives lectures in the institution and not correspondence.
“I’ve written to the CLE but it seems some people out there didn’t get it right, Obasanjo said adding; “they said the school of law is offering corresponding programmes and I said it to anyone I met that I graduated from the school and I am presently running my master and PHD in NOUN, so the notion is incorrect.
Obasanjo said that undermining part or portion in NOUN is undermining the whole institution adding that such development will be resisted.
He added that NOUN is Novel institution that is growing everyday adding that institution’s management were also working hard to further develop the school.
He however urged students particularly law graduates of NOUN to be patient with the authorities saying that getting accreditation is not automatic.
It be recalled that controversy have been trailing the disbanding of law graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria, a federal university accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) by Council of Legal Education (CLE), saddle with the responsibility of admitting law graduates into the Nigerian Law School, a prerequisite to qualify as a lawyer.