LAW We must reinvent legal education – Prof. Zuru
Prof Shehu Abdullahi Zuru is a former Deputy Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Abuja. He was recently named Chairman of the Governing Council of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta State. He speaks on the challenges of legal ed
What do you think can enhance the study of law in Nigeria?
To improve we have to go back to the basics. When you don’t pay attention to the requirements to be eligible to read law that is where the problem starts. At the end of the day we have lots of people who have gone through school and have acquired certificates, but in terms of the mental mindset for a legal career in law, it is simply not there. And some of these graduates; when they get to Law School, some of them don’t pursue a career in legal advocacy but they will always prefer to be in-house solicitors or go to the bench because they are considered as cheap sanctuary. I really support the idea being put forward by the NBA that you should have your first degree before you go in and read law.
Another area we should pay attention is: those who teach law: we need to raise the bar. I have said it before, it is not about having all the certificates, without the passion; if you don’t have the passion to be an academic, to be honest with you it is not just about law. That applies across board to other professions. You should not be given the opportunity to lecture in the university. We are talking about professionals here, we are not talking about people who just graduate with degrees and start looking for jobs. The survival of the society very much depends on this profession. So it should be regarded as exceptional and be treated with all exceptionalities.
The other aspect is the curriculum that we produce in the universities. There is no reason why Nigerian academic curriculum should remain the way it is for over 40 years. We need to find a way of reinventing the programme so that it would adapt with the times. If we can’t do that then we should forget about producing good lawyers. If you want the best then go for it.
The National Assembly has passed the Petroleum Industry Bill, what is your take on the original bill that was rejected?
Well I think the original frame of the bill was a liability rather than a catalyst for the positive transformation of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. For instance, creating a ‘special community fund’ in the bill did not sit down well with me. Because I believe, yes, there is devastating environmental consequences of oil and gas activities. But the question is if you look at how much the oil producing states have drawn on the basis of 13 per cent derivation, as well as their drawings from the ecological fund, I have no doubt that the states have been empowered enough to remedy some of the serious environmental challenges of their states. But if experiences of the recent past are anything to go by, the states have remarkably failed in that index. Now creating a community fund for me will not have made any significant difference because the obvious critical questions will be what will be the basis for drawing from the fund? Who will manage the funds?
The other aspect is the frontier oil basins where there was a proposal that a dedicated fund would be set up for that. It does not make superior economic sense because oil exploration is a risky venture and that is why the industry adopted a nomenclature for it: risk investment. Because whatever you invest in search for oil is like a gamble because there is no guarantee. Not even the geological seismic data will have drawn an absolute conclusion that oil will be discovered. So whatever you are investing is like embarking on a wild goose chase. Rather than do that why don’t you make the frontier basins very attractive: allow professional risk takers, the multinational oil companies. This will save resources for the country which can be diverted into other key sectors such as education and health.
What is your view on the application of the Local Content Act so far?
For me it has been a double barrel project. It was tinctured with so much positives and negatives. We have to revisit the fundamental reason for enacting the law. Looking at the surface, so much has been said about the milestone. But if you look beyond the rhetoric, I think what has been delivered has been very limited success. The Act has provided soft scholarships to train Nigerians in specialised areas. But the question is, with the training and skills acquired by Nigerians: do they stand better competitive chance of securing jobs in say, the oil and gas industry? The obvious answer is that it hasn’t. But we could talk of the positives: at least in the maritime sector, it has managed to induct a generation of future technologists within the country and by so doing providing jobs for Nigerians.
What is your vision for the petroleum university?
My vision for the university is to make it a world class university of petroleum resources. There are critical knowledge components of petroleum studies. It is not simply about technology, you have issues of economy and policy. Nothing stops the university from developing these specialised areas just like world class institutes like the Centre for Petroleum and Mineral Law Studies, University of Dundee, the Camborne School of Mines, which is an Institute under the University of Exeter’s Centre for Natural Resources, Law and Policy, University of Wollongong in Australia, and the Colorado School of Mines. I think they are the best international centres for the study of petroleum. And I think whatever curriculum the university is developing in the future will be synchronised with what obtains in international best practices as referenced in these international centres.
What are the irregularities you wish to reform in the institution?
We are newly inaugurated. But to be honest with you, we are going to interrogate some of the policies that have guided the management of the university. And of course we will rejig the template with the development of the university to make it compliant with global best practices. As alluded to by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, during his inaugural speech, there is no justification why specialised universities should be running courses in applied arts and social sciences. Every specialised university must operate strictly within the boundaries of its own mandate. As a specialised university of petroleum, the first of its kind in Africa, we have the responsibility to ensure that the university has not drifted in both its own actions and omissions. We will ensure that whatever programme the university is running is in conformity with its mandate. There is no reason why the University of Petroleum will run courses in medical sciences or conventional management sciences. There is simply no reason for that. And I couldn’t agree any better with the Minister of Education that they had asked those universities that drifted into conventional courses to shut down such courses. That is the right course of action. And our university that has not been indicted for such practice; we will ensure that we remain strictly within the ambit of our own mandate; that we have not run courses that have no correlation whatsoever with petroleum, petroleum studies and general petroleum knowledge areas.
What is your view on HND/ Bsc dichotomy which is now being abrogated?
I am not sitting here to interrogate the past but you cannot turn a page without reading what is on the page. We will allow the past to influence our future decisions. But make no mistake where the past outride in being wrong because we will hesitate in being influenced by such past practice. Whenever you begin to use expressions like ‘this is equivalent to this’, inadvertently, what you are saying is that they were never the same. As far as the university runs courses on HND and Bsc, I think the mirror guide for the university management is the technical and labour requirement of the national economy. Those programmes must have been approved by the NUC before they were mounted. We won’t have issues with that so long as those programmes service a critical sector of the national economy. But if there is any justification why the running of such programme needs to be revisited so that at the end of the day the council can be assisted in making an informed decision, we will surely do that.