Date Published: 08/18/09
THE NIGERIAN LAW SCHOOL CLASS OF 1999 - A TOAST TO 10 YEARS OF CALL TO BAR
By ESOSA OMO-USOH
“… the gates to hell stand
one on its hinge broken
the other inscribed with
the artless hieroglyphics of judgment…”
- From Dreaming in metaphors.
January 26, 1998 marked the beginning of two epochal events for me and, as I suspect, other members of the pioneer class of 1999. The first event was the beginning of our compulsory one year odyssey in legal training at the newly-relocated law school in Bwari, Abuja. The second event was the beginning of the demystification of the law school.
Back in my undergraduate days in the University of Benin, I recall being regaled with awe-inspiring tales of the law school by a couple of my lecturers. Then, we were made to believe that the law school was a revered institution where you are molded both in character and learning in preparation for your admission into the learned profession. Everyone and everything were supposedly prim and proper in the law school.
That illusion was first shattered on January 26, 1998 when I beheld the gates to the law school. It was about 2pm or thereabout when the Edo Line vehicle I had boarded from Benin City (along with 4 resit students from the class of 1998 who had come to the law school to check the results of their resit examinations) arrived at the law school.
The law school had just relocated from its traditional base in Lagos. As rumours had it then, the relocation was on the instructions of the Abacha Administration. Apparently, the relocation had been done without first putting in place the requisite structures. The property housing the law school was the defunct Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) established by the Babangida Administration in Bwari, a satellite town lying on the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory.
The first thing that struck me as we arrived the law school was the gates at the entrance. The state they were in inspired the poem from which the quotation atop this piece was culled. When I got to the admissions office, I met a huge crowd of law graduates from universities across the country. The admissions list was scheduled to be released that afternoon and everyone was waiting anxiously and praying that their name would be on it. Later in the afternoon, the list was released and pasted on a make-shift notice board. This inspired a gold rush of sorts as anxious law graduates buzzed around the notice board like bees in a hive trying desperately to locate their names on the list.
The journey proper began on April 22, 1998 when the law school formally commenced the Bar Part II course programme for the 1998/1999 session. As with the release of the admissions list, the registration process for successful candidates bore no semblance of the famed prim and proper reputation of the law school. Poor organization and logistic problems made the registration process as tortuous as the seemingly endless queues of law graduates waiting to be attended to by the irritable law school staff in charge of registration.
Concluding the registration process did not guarantee any respite as you then had to contend with the poor arrangements for accommodation. The four halls of residence (Blocks A, B, C and D) were barely completed before the commencement of the Bar Part II course programme. Given the large number of entrants, we were assigned four to a room. Those who were not comfortable with the idea of being paired with strangers from other universities were able (with the right arrangement) to get their friends assigned to the same room with them. Unfortunately, not all the rooms had beds in place. So, those of us unfortunate to be assigned such rooms had to make do with mattresses on bare floor before our beds arrived.
Feeding posed another great challenge to us as the authorities, apparently in the hurried relocation from Lagos to Bwari, had not made adequate preparation for feeding logistics. In the early days, we had only two food vendors. The first was Mama Nosa; whose make- shift buka located close to the female hostel blocks, originally catered for the construction workers working on the halls of residence. My friends and I fondly referred to her buka as “Mile 12” given its relative distance from the male hostels.
The second vendor was a strikingly dark-complexioned Yoruba woman whose open air buka was located underneath a dogonyaro tree close to the male hostels. Her specialty was fried yam with hot peppery sauce. We fondly referred to her buka as the “Centre for Democratic Feeding” or CDF for short. The name was an obvious play on the name of the previous occupants of the law school premises and the peculiar style of service at the buka whereby patrons milled around the woman and her make shift stove with their plates in hand waiting to be served fried yam and sauce straight from the frying pan.
By the time lectures commenced on May 12, 1998, the auditorium was still under construction and was therefore not ready for use. The authorities came up with a temporary solution that lasted the entire one year we spent in the law school. The assembly hall and the canteen were converted into lecture rooms. There were two streams of lectures and depending on your registration number, you sat for the lectures either in the assembly hall or the canteen. The lecturers usually delivered their lectures in the assembly hall and those of us in the canteen listened in via the several speakers embedded in the ceiling of the canteen.
Lectures were billed to commence at 9am for the morning stream and I believe 2pm for the afternoon stream. However, owing to the fact that the sitting arrangements at the lecture venues were usually inadequate for the student population, there was always a mad rush for sitting positions just before the commencement of lectures. During the first term, I recall some students used to wake up as early as 4am in the morning to secure and reserve sitting positions for lectures that were billed to commence at 9am! And there was also the rather sorry spectacle of lawyers-in-training all dressed up in their formal gears with chairs from their hostel rooms slung over their shoulders as they strolled into the assembly hall or canteen to receive their daily lectures.
Curiously, the law school authorities did not find this spectacle or the spectacle of students eating at make-shift canteens under the shade of dongoyaro trees disturbing or unfit for the noble profession. Rather, one day we woke up to hear of a decree (it being the appropriate word) forbidding the wearing of jeans within the campus. Apparently, as we were later to learn, the then Director-General had, on a Sunday visit to the female hostels, encountered a student (a classmate from the University of Benin) clad in a rather hot pair of jeans bum shorts and that outrage had sparked off the ban on jeans attires on campus.
Another obnoxious decree was the one on restriction of access of male students into female hostels and vice versa. Understandably, this particular decree was not very popular with the student population. Earlier on our arrival on campus, there was an attempt, during a meeting of the student population, to come up with a common objection to this restriction and present same to the authorities during the Director-General’s speech scheduled for April 27, 1998. Surprisingly, there was a minority group (comprising male students from Northern Universities) who were in support of the restriction. During the meeting, their position was vigorously canvassed by one Mahmoud (if memory serves me right) whose memorable, if bordering on extremist, oratory turned comical when in the course of his submission, he cited a judicial authority and surmised thus; “…it is a pundamental (i.e. fundamental) frincifle (i.e. principle) of law as stated in the case of Dfifi (i.e. DPP) v. Shaw…”
After the Director-General’s speech on April 27, 1998, one Oyosoro, on behalf of the Student population, volunteered a response and prayed the authorities to reconsider their position on the issue. In his response, the obviously displeased Director-General noted that never in history of the law school had protocol been so flagrantly breached by having someone responding after the Director-General had delivered his speech. Needles to say, the decree stayed and those restless males who could not do without female consort had to hang out in front of the female hostels and send signals of their presence to the appropriate rooms either through the porters or their assistants or even through other female students.
One aspect of our sojourn at the law school that lived up to its hype was the pre-examination fever. The attendant state of near-insanity that heralds the commencement of the Bar final examinations was (and still is) the stuff of legend. As soon as we resumed for the 3 rd term at the law school, you could tell the count down was on. You could feel the tension in the air. Frivolities took the backseat and earnest preparation for the Bar final examinations took control of virtually everyone. As the D-day drew closer, the more palpable the tension became. At this point, stories started flying around of people buckling under the pressure and electing to defer their sitting for the examinations. Finally, D-day arrived and the Bar final examinations were upon us like a ton of bricks!
After six frenetic days marked by logistic incompetence on the part of the law school authorities, we rode that storm like a crazy bronco and afterwards, everything was beautiful again. At least until the next three moths when the results would be released.
On July 31, 2009, the Bar final examination results were published and the overall performance was sterling and as I understand it, something of a record at that time. The icing on the cake came in September 1999 when we were called to the Bar. Ten years after as I look back, I can not help but think, it was one hell of a ride!
To the class of 1999, whether in active legal practice or some other endeavour, dead or alive, allow me to propose a toast; Congratulations! It was not easy, but we made it!
To the occupants of “the wigs” and ‘Coral’s Slit”, my experience with you guys is one I will cherish forever! Finally, to Elijah Ahiaba (RIP), the nicest guy who ever lived, thank you for the privilege and honour of your friendship.
ESOSA OMO-USOH
PHONE: 08023154515
SOLOLA & AKPANA (BARRISTERS AND SOLICITORS)
NO.12A, IGBODO STREET OLD G.R.A, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE.
E-MAIL:eousoh@sololaakpana.com
