The Faculty of Law: An Agenda Before the New Vice-Chancellor
Madam Vice-Chancellor,
Permit me, at the outset, to warmly congratulate you on your assumption of office as the Vice-Chancellor of Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University. Your emergence comes at a defining moment in the history of the institution, when the decisions taken by the administration will have consequences far beyond the immediate tenure of any individual office holder. You have inherited not merely an office, but an institution whose character, reputation and academic direction are still being shaped. It is therefore my humble submission that your administration has a rare opportunity to consolidate the foundations already laid and establish a culture of excellence, fairness and institutional integrity.
By providence, circumstance or perhaps an accident of history, Imo State is privileged to be among the relatively few states in Nigeria with two full-fledged universities. This should not be regarded merely as an advantage in numbers, but as an opportunity to create institutions capable of competing meaningfully with universities across Nigeria and beyond. Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University, being comparatively young, possesses the unique advantage of being able to consciously design its academic culture before undesirable traditions become entrenched. The University should therefore aspire to become an institution where merit, scholarship, research, professional excellence and integrity are not merely spoken about but visibly practised.
It is particularly worthy of celebration that, within its relatively few years of existence, the University obtained initial approvals from the National Universities Commission for important professional programmes, including Law, Medicine and Nursing. Such developments require vision, administrative courage and institutional foresight, and they deserve recognition. In this regard, the contributions attributed to the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ikechukwu Dozie, particularly in pursuing these strategic academic programmes, should not be overlooked. Institutions are strengthened when succeeding administrations acknowledge the legitimate achievements of their predecessors and build upon them rather than treating every change of administration as an invitation to begin the institutional journey afresh.
Of even greater significance to the legal community is the approval reportedly obtained from the Council of Legal Education for the establishment of the University’s Faculty of Law. This is not an ordinary achievement because legal education occupies a peculiar position within the Nigerian university system. A Faculty of Law must satisfy not only the general requirements applicable to university education but also the professional standards established for legal education and the eventual training of persons seeking admission into the Nigerian legal profession. The approval should therefore be regarded as the beginning of a serious institutional responsibility rather than the conclusion of one.
The Faculty of Law of any university is, in many respects, a special bride that must be managed with particular care, professionalism and foresight. It is from such a faculty that future judges, advocates, academics, legislators, administrators and corporate advisers may emerge. The quality of the founding lecturers will inevitably influence the intellectual character of generations of students who pass through the institution. It is therefore important that the Faculty of Law should not merely exist in name, but should be deliberately nurtured into a centre of serious legal scholarship, professional training, research and intellectual engagement.
It is against this background that the present situation surrounding the Faculty of Law deserves the attention of your administration. It is understood that under the previous administration, following the appropriate process of advertisement, applications and interviews, steps were taken towards the recruitment of academic staff for the Faculty. Yet, notwithstanding the reported completion of the interview process, the outcome of the exercise is said to remain unpublished. If the process was duly conducted in accordance with the University’s established procedures, it deserves to be brought to an appropriate and transparent conclusion, while any legitimate administrative concern should be addressed through the proper institutional mechanisms.
The matter is particularly important because the Faculty of Law is operating within a regulatory environment where time and institutional preparedness matter considerably. The University cannot afford unnecessary administrative uncertainty at a stage when academic staff, facilities, teaching materials and other requirements need to be put in place. The longer the process remains unresolved, the more difficult it may become to establish the Faculty upon the solid foundation contemplated by its regulatory approvals. Your administration therefore has an opportunity to provide the Faculty with a clear and safe institutional pathway to commence, develop and ultimately distinguish itself.
Madam Vice-Chancellor, you are stepping into very large shoes. The immediate past administration appears to have invested considerable effort in creating the foundations upon which the University’s professional programmes can develop, and the pursuit of Law, Medicine and Nursing represents an important part of that institutional vision. Your responsibility is not necessarily to imitate your predecessor, but to preserve what is good, correct what requires correction and take the University to a higher level. In that regard, the Faculty of Law provides an early opportunity for your administration to demonstrate that institutional continuity, due process and academic excellence can coexist with legitimate administrative change.
One area that requires particular vigilance is the recruitment of academic staff. A university teaching position should never become a reward for friendship, family relationship, political association, professional familiarity or personal loyalty. Academic appointment is a public institutional responsibility because the consequences of appointing an unsuitable academic do not end with the appointment letter; they are eventually borne by students, the University and the wider society. Every recruitment exercise should therefore be guided by the principles of merit, transparency, competence, academic qualification, research capacity, teaching ability, professional experience and the established laws and regulations governing university appointments.
The University should, in particular, ensure that academic appointments follow the normal institutional sequence of establishing the position, advertising the vacancy, receiving applications, shortlisting qualified candidates, conducting properly constituted interviews and obtaining the necessary approvals from the appropriate organs of the University. Where an earlier process has been properly conducted, the interests of fairness and institutional integrity require that it should not simply be disregarded without a legitimate and demonstrable reason. Where there is a need to review any aspect of the process, such review should itself be conducted transparently and in accordance with the University’s governing instruments.
The founding academic staff of a Faculty of Law should be selected with even greater care because they will help establish the intellectual culture of the Faculty. The University should seek persons who are not merely qualified on paper but who possess demonstrated capacity for teaching, legal research, publication and professional engagement. A young faculty needs scholars who can build programmes, develop curricula, supervise research, mentor students and establish relationships with the wider legal and academic community. The first generation of lecturers should therefore be regarded as builders of an institution rather than simply occupants of available positions.
Anything short of a credible, transparent and merit-driven recruitment process risks creating a perception that the University is becoming a place where opportunities are distributed through personal connections rather than academic competence. Such a perception would be particularly damaging to a young institution still establishing its identity. Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University should not aspire merely to be another local university whose academic influence is largely confined to its immediate geographical environment. Its ambition should be to produce graduates, scholarship and research capable of commanding respect throughout Nigeria and, eventually, in the international academic community.
The Faculty of Law must also be supported with the necessary teaching and learning infrastructure. Approval alone cannot produce a functional law faculty. Students require access to current textbooks, law reports, journals, electronic legal research databases and a properly equipped law library where serious research can take place. They also require suitable lecture halls, moot court facilities, ICT infrastructure and other materials necessary for modern legal education. The quality of legal education is ultimately reflected not merely in the number of students admitted but in the quality of the intellectual environment in which those students are trained.
The University should equally recognise that legal education has changed considerably in the contemporary world. A modern Faculty of Law must expose students not only to traditional doctrinal subjects but also to emerging areas of law, legal technology, international law, corporate practice, human rights, intellectual property, environmental law, international economic law and other fields increasingly relevant to legal practice. This requires academic staff who are themselves engaged in continuing research and professional development. A faculty that teaches yesterday’s law without interrogating today’s challenges cannot adequately prepare students for tomorrow’s legal profession.
There is also a larger responsibility that accompanies the establishment of a Faculty of Law. A university law faculty should become a place where difficult questions affecting society can be examined without fear or favour, where students learn that law is not merely a collection of rules but an instrument for justice, social order and human development. The Faculty should cultivate respect for constitutionalism, the rule of law, human rights and professional ethics. In doing so, it will contribute not only to the University but also to the development of the Nigerian legal system.
Madam Vice-Chancellor, this is therefore not merely an appeal concerning recruitment. It is an appeal concerning the kind of institution Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University intends to become. The manner in which the University handles the Faculty of Law at this formative stage will send a powerful message about its commitment to due process, merit and academic excellence. If the University gets the foundation right, subsequent administrations will inherit a culture that is easier to preserve. If the foundation is compromised, future administrations may spend considerable time attempting to correct institutional weaknesses that could have been avoided from the beginning.
The law itself teaches us that procedure matters, particularly where the exercise of public or institutional power affects the rights and legitimate expectations of persons. A university, though an academic institution, is not exempt from principles of fairness, transparency and accountability in the exercise of its statutory and administrative powers. Recruitment decisions must therefore be capable of being defended not merely as administrative preferences but as decisions reached through lawful, rational and institutionally recognised processes. This is especially important in a young university whose reputation is still being formed.
There is wisdom in continuity. A new administration should not feel compelled to dismantle every arrangement inherited from its predecessor merely because it wishes to establish its own identity. Where the previous administration laid a good foundation, the noblest course is to build upon it. Where there are mistakes, they should be corrected fairly; where there are irregularities, they should be addressed lawfully; and where there are achievements, they should be acknowledged and preserved. In this manner, institutional progress becomes a continuous journey rather than a series of competing administrations.
Madam Vice-Chancellor, the history of universities is ultimately written through the institutions they build and the people they produce. Offices change hands, administrations come and go, but a well-established faculty can remain for generations. The Faculty of Law at Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University is therefore bigger than the interests of any individual, group or administration. Its future should be determined by the University’s long-term academic interest and the legitimate requirements of legal education, rather than by temporary personal considerations.
I therefore respectfully urge your administration to give the Faculty of Law the attention it deserves, to clarify the status of the recruitment exercise already undertaken, and to ensure that every subsequent appointment is conducted through transparent and established procedures. Let the best qualified candidates be allowed to serve, irrespective of who they know or where they come from. Let the University’s teaching environment be properly equipped, its academic staff properly supported, and its regulatory obligations treated with the seriousness that the profession of law demands.
The University does not merely need a Faculty of Law; it needs a Faculty of Law that Nigeria will respect. It needs lecturers whose scholarship will be cited beyond the walls of the University, students who will distinguish themselves in the profession, a library capable of supporting serious legal research and an academic culture in which merit is stronger than connection. Above all, it needs an administration courageous enough to establish from the beginning that academic opportunity at a public university must be administered in the public interest.
Madam Vice-Chancellor, you have inherited an institution of enormous possibilities and a Faculty of Law standing at a critical point in its history. May your administration have the wisdom to preserve what is good, the courage to correct what is wrong, the fairness to respect due process and the vision to build an institution that will outlive every individual who has the privilege of serving it. History will ultimately judge administrations not merely by the offices they occupied, but by the institutions they strengthened and the legacy they left behind.
Uwakwe, Roland Chukwudi
Legal Practitioner | Legal Researcher | Academic
Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
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