03072019 - Buhari's Ruga policy, an explosive issue — SOYINKA

14 sailors killed in Russian
underwater vessel fire
FOURTEEN Russian sailors on board a submers
ible military vessel were killed after a fire
broke out and they suffocated on the fumes.
The deep-sea research vessel was carrying out a
survey in Russia’s territorial waters when the blaze
erupted on Monday, the defence ministry said.
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the loss
of 14 navy officers in the fire a “big loss”, ordering a
full investigation into what happened.
“It is a big loss for the navy and for the army as a
whole,” Putin told Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu in
a televised meeting.
The fire was later extinguished and the submersible
subsequently docked at the Northern Fleet’s base in
northwestern Severomorsk on the Barents Sea. An investigation
was launched to establish the cause of the
fire.
“Fire broke out on board a deep-water scientific research
vessel that was studying the marine environment
of the world ocean on behalf of the Russian navy,”
Interfax news agency cited a ministry statement as
saying. “Fourteen submariners died as the result of
smoke inhalation.”
The report came after Russian news outlet RBC cited
an unnamed military source as saying the vessel was
a nuclear-powered AS-12 submarine, but there was no
official confirmation.
The statement did not identify the type or model of
the vessel.
Norwegian authorities said on Tuesday they have not
detected abnormally high levels of radiation after the
incident.
Dubai ruler’s wife escapes
to UK in fear of her life
PRINCESS Haya Bint al-Hussein, a wife of the
ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Al
Maktoum, is in hiding in London and said to be in
fear for her life after fleeing her husband.
Sheikh Mohammed, 69, who is a billionaire racehorse
owner and has often been seen conversing with
the Queen at Ascot, has posted a furious poem on
Instagram accusing an unidentified woman of
“treachery and betrayal”.
The Jordanian-born and British-educated Princess
Haya, 45, married Sheikh Mohammed - owner of
Godolphin horse racing stables - in 2004, becoming
his sixth and “junior wife”.
Sheikh Mohammed reportedly has 23 children by
different wives.
Princess Haya fled initially this year to Germany
to seek asylum. She is now said to be living in a £85m
($107m) town house in Kensington Palace Gardens,
in central London, and preparing for a legal battle in
the High Court.
So what prompted her to flee her luxurious life in
Dubai and why is she said to be “afraid for her life”?
Sources close to her have said that Princess Haya
had recently discovered disturbing facts behind the
mysterious return to Dubai last year of Sheikha Latifa,
one of the ruler’s daughters. She fled the UAE by
sea with the help of a Frenchman but was intercepted
by armed men off the coast of India and returned to
Dubai.
Princess Haya then, along with the former Irish president
Mary Robinson, defended Dubai’s reputation
over the incident.
The Dubai authorities said the runaway Sheikha Latifa
had been “vulnerable to exploitation” and was
“now safe in Dubai”. But human rights advocates said
she was forcibly abducted against her will.
U.N. investigator reports possible
fresh war crimes in Myanmar
M
YANMAR security forces and insurgents are com
mitting human rights violations against civilians
in restive western states that may amount to fresh war
crimes, a United Nations investigator said on Tuesday.
A 2017 military crackdown drove more than 730,000
Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. U.N. investigators
have said that Myanmar’s operation included
mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson and
was executed with “genocidal intent”.
The Yangon government denies committing those
atrocities and says its military campaign across northern
Rakhine was in response to attacks by Rohingya
militants.
Government troops are currently fighting ethnic
rebels in conflict-torn Rakhine and Chin states. The
Arakan Army is an insurgent group that is fighting for
greater autonomy for the two states.
On June 22, authorities ordered telecoms companies
to shut down internet services in the two states. Telenor
Group said the ministry of transport and communications
had cited “disturbances of peace and use of
internet activities to coordinate illegal activities”.
Yanghee Lee, the U.N. independent expert on human
rights in Myanmar, said last week the army may be committing
gross human rights violations under cover of a
mobile phone blackout in Rakhine and Chan, but on
Tuesday she went further.
Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2019 —39
How to reposition Legal Education for
National Development — Afe Babalola
By Tunde Olofintila
Frontline legal colossus
and Founder of Afe
Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti,
ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola,
SAN, has identified quality
legal education as an essential
element in producing legal
professionals who can
competently represent clients
and contribute to the
establishment of the Rule of
Law as opposed to the Rule of
Man.
The Legal Icon however
observed that after five decades,
it has become crystal clear that
the quality of legal education
in Nigeria needs to be
improved upon in order to
meet the ever dynamic
international standards and to
equip many law graduates
with the requisite skills to be
effective legal professionals in
Nigeria.
To reverse the trend,
Babalola who spoke at the 2019
Annual Conference of
Nigerian Association of Law
Teachers at the International
Conference Centre, University
of Ibadan, yesterday, said that
there is an urgent need for
Nigeria’s Educational Policy
makers to effect far-reaching
rejig of the curricula of
Elementary and Secondary
schools as a first step to
repositioning legal education
for National Development. In
his view, the amendment of the
curricula should begin with
inclusion of such subjects as
Geography, History, Literature,
Economics and Information
Communication Technology
(ICT).
Lives of important
personalities
Babalola who was
represented by the acting Vice
Chancellor of ABUAD, Prof.
Smaranda E. Olarinde,
reasoned that the reason for
this was not far-fetched as the
introduction and study of
Geography would enable the
would-be lawyers to know
about the existence of man,
both in the past and in the
present while the study of
History would enable them to
know about the lives of
important personalities, how
they made it in life to the extent
that many people adopt many
of them as their role models
even without meeting them.
His words: “When we look
at the history of our great men
today, most of them went to
schools where the
aforementioned subjects were
taught. It was at the level that
they were taught how to
harbour a strong abhorrence
for corruption and all other ills
that are afflicting our society
today. They were taught the
virtues of discipline, honesty,
integrity and punctuality and
all of that have become part of
them since then”.
As for Literature and ICT, he
said: “On its part, Literature
teaches us about great men
and women in the literary
world and how to weave words
together while the place of ICT
in the contemporary world
cannot be wished away or over
emphasized”
He added: “To serve the
needs of a 21 st Century
Afe Babalola, SAN.
society, the justice system
must be digital by default and
design. Information
technology is increasingly a
key component of our
lives…the use of information
technology has also become
an increasingly significant
factor in the delivery of legal
education, legal services and
in the adjudication of civil
disputes.
“All over the world,
Technology is starting to drive
the administration of justice
with virtual courts and Online
Dispute Resolution (ODR)
providing alternative methods
of resolving legal issues. ODR
is a process where legal
disputes are resolved via web
based systems and there are
a number of different versions
of this”.
All final year
students of Nigeria
universities, be they
private or public,
should be made to
write the same final
examination as it is
being done by the
Council for Legal
Education for law
graduates
After scaling the hurdle of
reworking the curricula,
Babalola called on the
National Universities
Commission, NUC, to make
it mandatory for students who
want to study Law to have a
minimum of Credit Pass in
English Language, English
Literature, Mathematics,
Geography, History,
Economics and Computer
Education because of the
central roles these subjects will
play in the practice of the
would-be lawyers in future.
According to him, “it is a
well-known fact that in the
United States of America and
Germany and many other
countries of the world, the
standard of law practice is
very high unlike what obtains
here. One of the factors
responsible for the high
standard is that a candidate
must have a Degree before
he/she would be admitted to
study Law. And that is why
they have ensured over
time that Law is studied as
a second degree to ensure
that those to be admitted into
Law Colleges are really
mature before coming to the
Law College”.
He added: “On the
contrary, in Nigeria,
students who are admitted
to study Law need only to
pass School Certificate and
JAMB Examinations. Time
it was when students must
pass GCE Advanced Level
or Higher School
Examination (HSE) before
they were admitted to
universities. However that
the Federal Government in
its wisdom summersaulted
and lowered the admission
standard to universities
remains baffling and a
mystery.
“Nigeria should therefore
take a cue from what obtains
in Germany and the United
States where a student to be
admitted to their Law
Colleges must have earned
a Degree in some other
disciplines or at least G.C.E
Advanced Level as obtained
in England and as it was
before in Nigeria”.
On the place of the Law
School in repositioning
Legal Education for
National Development,
Babalola said the current
trend whereby Law
Graduates go to the
Nigerian Law School for
their Bar Examination is
commendable. But he
added that Government
should go a step further by
making the Central Law
School an Examining Body
only with power to screen
quality and reputable
universities for the training
of Lawyers for 18 months
after their LL.B and conduct
and moderate common
examination preparatory for
their final Call to Bar
Examinations at the Law
School.
Proposed
arrangement
With this proposed
arrangement, Law
graduates from Nigerian
universities would proceed to
reputable universities with
up-to-date facilities and
Faculty members of
international repute for their
post-LL.B training and only
go to the Law School to write
their Call to Bar
Examinations without
having to be residential
students in the Law School
and only take the common
Bar Examination. This, in his
view, will enable the
Nigerian Law School to
concentrate on supervision of
the universities instead of
proliferating Law Schools all
over the country despite its
lean pause.
Besides, it must also be
mandatory for Law Students
to go through Clinical
training during their
undergraduate days in their
respective universities as this
will make their training more
robust and allencompassing.
Likewise,
Undergraduate Law
Students must be attached to
some selected reputable Law
Firms during holidays like it
is done in ABUAD to keep
them busy, enable them
acquire relevance
experience and familiarize
themselves with law
processes.
On Post Call Experience,
Babalola said: “In our days,
the norm was that green wigs
must be attached to reputable
and seasoned law firms
before they could set up their
own practices. But all of that
would appear to have
change. It is my belief that
we must go back to that timetested
practice. Green wigs
must be made to serve a
period of a minimum of one
year under reputable and
experienced lawyers. This
will certainly enhance the
standard of practice.
The place and import
of partnerships
Babalola did not leave the
Practitioners out of the need
to reposition Legal Education
for National Development,
stressing that the starting
point for practitioners is for
them to appreciate the place
and import of partnerships
instead of running one-man
Law Offices. Indeed, Oneman
Law Offices should be
discouraged while Law
Firms should be encouraged
while Lawyers should team
up as Law Firms. In addition
to the above, he counselled
that Lawyers should
specialize in different areas
of Law such as Constitutional
Law, Human Rights Law,
Jurisprudence and
International Law,
Commercial Law, Litigation
and Arbitration among many
others.
In view of the different
admission rules and
guidelines for admission into
Law degrees among the
above three bodies, he called
on JAMB, the NUC and the
Council for Legal Education
and/ or government to take
urgent steps to harmonise
the different admission rules
and guidelines in the interest
of repositioning Legal
Education for national
development, particularly as
the different cut-off marks for
different universities would
do more harm to the quality
of education in the country.
To correct this malaise, he
canvassed that the cut off
points for admission into
Nigeria universities should
be the same, adding that “a
situation whereby some
universities admit candidates
who scored 140 or less out of
a total mark of 400 is
ridiculous”.
He added: “In our days, a
child who scored less than
50% would incur the wrath
of his teachers and would be
caned for his indolence. But
now, indolence is being
encouraged by agreeing to
admit people who scored as
less as 30% in their
qualifying examination”.
Another way of
repositioning Legal
Education for National
Development is for all final
year students of Nigeria
universities, be they private
or public, should be made to
write the same final
examination as it is being
done by the Council for Legal
Education for law graduates.
It is through this method that
Nigerians and indeed the
whole world will appreciate
the quality of our education.
Under this condition,
universities would be forced
to raise the standard of
students they admit as they
will only admit candidates
who are fit as university
materials.
Olofintila writes in from
Ado-Ekiti