Panel narrows search for Law School head to three
By Gbolahan Gbadamosi
Asst. Judicial Editor
THE search for a successor to the outgoing Law School Director-General, Chief John Kayode Jegede (SAN), has been narrowed to three candidates, The Guardian has learnt.
Jegede's nine-year tenure will end in September. Although there were eight aspirants, the committee set up by the Council of Legal Education (CLE) to recommend the successor on Wednesday night narrowed the options to the three serving deputy directors-general of the Law School. They are: Dr. Kole Abayomi, Dr. Tahir Mamman and an associate professor, Ernest Ojukwu.
The three deputy directors-general are the current heads of the Law Schools in Lagos (Abayomi), Kano (Mamman) and Enugu (Ojukwu).
The committee was headed by the outgoing President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN). In the course of the search, it interviewed five other eminent legal practitioners. These include the Secretary to the Council and Director of Administration, Mr. Olanrewaju Onadeko; the school's Director of Studies, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Doherty; and the Dean, Faculty of Law of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Prof. Olu Adediran.
Olanipekun's appointment and promotion committee will on Thursday next week present the three nominees to the full council, chaired by Justice Moronkeji Omotayo Onalaja (JCA), which in turn may send one name or all the names to President Olusegun Obasanjo for his assent and approval.
Another significant decision to be taken at the Abuja meeting by the Council is the fixing of a definite tenure for the new Director-General. Sources close to the Council told The Guardian that a one-term of five years is being proposed.
The first director of the school, as the helmsmen used to be called, Mr. G .R. Rudd, was in saddle for four years (1962-1967). His successor, Dr. Olakunle Orojo spent eight years (1968-1976), while Justice Jacob Sofolahan administered the school for two years (1976-1978).
To date, the longest serving helmsman of the school, which turned 40 last year, was the late Chief Babatunde Ibironke (SAN), who was in office for 14 years (1979-1983).
Jegede took over in 1995. The search for his successor was thrown open to interested candidates via internal and external advertisements in the media early this month. The advertisements stipulate, among others, that the candidate should be a "holder of the office of a professor in a faculty of law in a Nigerian university, or the holder of such qualifications as are required for appointment as a professor in a faculty of law in a Nigerian university."
It also expects the director-general to be "a legal practitioner who has on the date of application, or had at any time prior to that date, been in active legal practice for not less than 10 years." The council added: "Experience in management at the tertiary/vocational educational level will be an advantage."
Abayomi had his secondary education at C.M.S. Grammar School, Lagos between 1954-1959, King's College, Lagos, 1960-61.
He was at the King's College, University of Durham` (1962-65) for his law degree and came out with a second class Upper Division, and called to the Nigerian Bar in 1966.
Abayomi had his doctorate degree in Administrative Law and Public Administration at Clare College, University of Cambridge (1967-70).
He was appointed as a lecturer in Mercantile Law in 1969 at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, Cambridge.
His career in the Nigerian Law School started in 1970 when he was appointed as a lecturer grade II and three years later (1973), he was promoted to lecturer grade I and in 1976 as senior lecturer. However, he was granted a leave of absence in 1978.
Abayomi returned to full time status as senior lecturer of the school in 1982 and thus his rise till he was made substantive Secretary to the Council of Legal Education and Director, Administration of the school between 1999 to 2001.
In February 2001, he was appointed as deputy director-general and head of the Lagos campus of the school on February 12, 2001. Between October 25 to December 10, 2001, he was the acting director-general of the school.
A Commonwealth scholar among other awards, Abayomi, a member of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) (50 wise men) in 1975, had to his credit: Parliamentary Democracy and Control of the Administration in Nigeria, 1960-1966 - A thesis submitted and approved for the Ph.D. degree of the University of Cambridge 1970; contributor in FRA Williams: Through the cases edited by Taiwo Fakeye, among others.
Mamman hails from Adamawa State, attended Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, for his bachelor's degree in Law (1983) and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984 with one of the best grades.
For his masters and doctorate degrees, he was at the University of Warwick, London and prior to his appointment as deputy director-general, Kano, he was the Dean of Law and Students' Affairs, University of Maiduguri.
Mamman is the editor of the Four Decades of Service to the Legal Profession - a publication to mark the 40th year anniversary of the setting up of the Nigerian Law School.
Ojukwu is a product of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He started his legal practice at the chambers of Chief G.N.A. Atulomah.
Ojukwu was the Dean, Faculty of Law, Abia State University between 1995 to 2001 before his appointment as deputy director-general and he was appointed as associate professor of the same university in 1998.
A Bar man, he was the secretary of the Aba branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) between 1992 to 1993 and rose to become the chairman of the branch in 1997 to 1999.
He is the editor-in-Chief, Nigerian Bar Journal of NBA and chairman, NBA Law Reform Committee, that recently drafted a new Legal Practitioners Act 2004.
