Obasanjo Urges FG To Solve NOUN’s Law Graduates’ Problems

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on the federal government to step in and solve the problem of the law graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) not being admitted into the Nigerian Law School, saying it is a serious matter that needs to be tackled with all seriousness.

He stated this when the Vice-chancellor of NOUN, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, paid him a courtesy call at his house in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

NOUN has recently suspended admission into its law degree programme because of a decision by the Council of Legal Education (CLE) to stop law graduates from the university from gaining entry into the Law School and become lawyers.

The former president, who last year graduated with a degree in Theology from NOUN, said: “When they told me about law people, I said who are the early lawyers? They sat at home and read and they ate their dinner… And then they qualified. We know, we were there with most of them in the 1950s.”

He said, “Whereas we have made the university popular, we still have a sort of what I call either ignorance or resistance. I try to explain, and I think we need to do this, people don’t know how the Open University works. And we need to make them know it.”A press statement by the Director, Media, NOUN, Ibrahim Sheme, quoted the former president, Obasanjo, who argued that even though the university has achieved the success of becoming popular, there is ignorance of how it really works.

He called on the federal government to give more funding to NOUN in order to meet its objectives.

“I think we have to persuade government to give you more. The point is that at this point in time money is scarce, but Open University is doing much more than any of the world universities is doing. I am not running down the other universities, what I’m saying is that the opportunity that Open University offers is much more.”