DG Law School Refutes Allegations of Withheld Results

Director General of the Nigerian Law School, Professor Isa Chiroma, has dismissed the petition on withheld results initiated by hundreds of Law Graduates who staged peaceful protest at the entrance of the National Assembly complex, Abuja recently.

Chiroma spoke Abuja during an investigative hearing into a motion bothering on the alleged withholding of Bar results and backlog of Students awaiting call to the Bar, at the instance of House Committee on Justice, chaired by Hon. Olumide Osoba.

While noting that it is the statutory responsibility of the Body of Benchers to determine those who are qualified for Call to Bar, Chiroma argued that those who failed the examinations cannot be called to Bar.

He said if any result was delayed it must be due to examination malpractice.

He stressed that examination malpractices remain a grave offence for anyone caught during the examination period.

He said CCTV cameras have been installed in various examination halls at the Law School in Abuja.

Chiroma presented some of the visual evidences of female students who wrote on her laps and sensitive parts of their bodies.

While relaying the due process being followed by the Law School to ensure transparency, he said: “When somebody is apprehended in the examination hall, there’s a process, first and foremost, whether it’s called Copy or he came in with extraneous materials, or he came in with telephone, these are strict liability offence. When you are in the exam, the telephone, whether in use it or not is a strict liability offence.

“So, all these are the situation, and nobody has disputed this. When this is done, they come before a committee of management. This committee is responsible in determining whether this person is guilty or not. 

“They are brought in, they are given opportunity to defend themselves. Most of them, what they say is that ‘its the work of devil, it will never repeat itself again’; ‘Forgive us, it was a mistake’; ‘I didn’t know this’. 

“What I want to say clearly is that the Law School like every organized system, has its own calendar, and whatever we do in Law School is based on this calendar. 

“At the beginning of every session we advertised for admissions. We have timing for our when admissions will end, our lectures, internship program, when students come out to do more trial examination, timetable for examination, when result is to be processed, when result is to be out in all these things, each body has its own role.

“For example, when it comes to examination, when examinations are marked, it goes to Board of Examiners, and they pass the outcome of its findings to the Board of Studies and later to the Committee of Council, which also looks at the result.

“What Council does is to either ratify or make certain decisions on these results. And in our system, once Council approved results that day that it is always out on our portal. That’s how this system works. So, the issue of withholding result does not even arise. This result comes out the day Council approves.

“So, when we saw that people were writing to National Assembly to say that they should intervene to ask us to release result that we withheld, there’s no reason withholding result. Any result withheld in Law School has to do for example, with examination malpractice.”