Two bills before the Senate seeking to amend the Legal Aid Council Act 2011 and the Legal Education Act (LFN 2004) respectively, have passed second reading and are slated for public hearing on 15th November 2021. The bill to amend the Legal Aid Council Act is sponsored by Senator Emmanuel Orker-Jev (Benue: PDP) and seeks to amend section 8 of the Act to extend criminal defence services to “indigent persons in Sharia Courts of Appeal and other Sharia Courts within Nigeria” and legal aid services to “indigent persons undergoing civil litigation before Customary Courts of Appeal and other Customary Courts within Nigeria.”
The bill to amend the Legal Education Act, sponsored by Senator Smart Adeyemi (Kogi: APC) seeks to provide for the establishment of at least two campuses for the Nigeria Law School in each of the six geo-political zones of the country. It also seeks to empower the Council of Legal Education to increase the number of campuses whenever the need arises, subject to the approval of the President.
The proposed campuses and their locations are listed in the bill as follows:
- North-Central: Bwari Law School Campus, Abuja; Kabba Law School Campus, Kogi
- North-East: Yola Law School Campus, Adamawa; Maiduguri Law School Campus, Borno
- North-West: Kano Law School Campus, Kano; Arugungun Law School Campus, Kebbi
- South-East: Enugu Law School Campus, Enugu; Okija Law School Campus, Anambra
- South-South: Yenagoa Law School Campus, Bayelsa; Orogun Law School Campus, Delta
- South West: Lagos Law School Campus, Lagos; Ifaki Law School, Ekiti
Six campuses of the Nigerian Law School already exist in Abuja, Adamawa, Kano, Enugu, Bayelsa and Lagos. If passed, the bill will be for the establishment of six additional campuses, one in each geo-political zone.