.. Cautions Youths Against Disruption of Oil Companies
Faculties of law in universities across the country have been urged to place premium on high standards in the training of law students to produce competent lawyers and safeguard the legal system in Nigeria.
The Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, stated this when the Acting Dean and other principal staff of the Faculty of Law, Federal University of Otuoke, paid him a courtesy visit in Government House, Yenagoa, on Tuesday.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr Doubara Atasi, the Deputy Governor, restated his concern that the once noble and respected legal profession was fast losing honour and pride of place in the country due to unethical conducts brazenly exhibited by some members of the bar and bench.
Senator Ewhrudjakpo, who stressed the need for drastic measures to address the deficiency of ethics among most young law graduates and some practicing lawyers, urged the various faculties of law and the Law Schools to insist on quality, and not quantity of people acquiring legal education to save the nation’s judiciary from ignominy and embarrassment.
His words: “We have always had problems with the grooming of lawyers, and that is a very big issue. So you must from the word go, set the standard, because if you do not set the standard now, you cannot set the standard in the future.
“We really need to take the issue of training and retraining of our law students very seriously. Some of them may be good in learning but most of them are poor in character. So we must do something about that to save the judiciary from further embarrassment in this country.
“Our outcomes and our output from the Law School, which are the dividends from the various law faculties do not reflect what we call, ethical practice. So we need to instil proper training from the beginning.”
He congratulated the Acting Dean, Dr. Michael Akatugba on his appointment, and commended the Federal University of Otuoke for establishing the Faculty of Law to promote legal education in the country.
Addressing their requests, Senator Ewhrudjakpo, assured his visitors of the state government’s readiness to continually identify with the Federal University Otuoke to enable the institution achieve goals, especially in research and scholarship.
He noted that although the institution is owned by the federal government, Bayelsa had never shied away from playing supportive roles since its establishment in 2013, adding that several foundational structures of the university were built by the then Chief Seriake Dickson’s Administration.
Earlier in his presentation, the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Law, Federal University Otuoke, Dr. Michael Akatugba, pleaded for intervention from the Bayelsa State Government for rehabilitation of dilapidated facilities in the faculty.
Dr. Akatugba, who noted that about 80 percent of the entire student population of the Federal University Otuoke are indigenes of Bayelsa, specifically requested the state government to help in the solarization of its e-library as well as the rehabilitation of the water system and leaking roof of the Law Faculty building.
In another development, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, has cautioned youths of Tarakiri Clan cutting across various local government areas in Bayelsa and Delta states to shun brigandage, drug abuse and disruption of operations of oil companies in their various communities.
The Deputy Governor, who spoke during a courtesy call by the new leadership of the National Association of Tarakiri Youths Worldwide, advised them to partner relevant ministries and agencies in sensitising their members on the gains of maintaining peace and engaging in agriculture and other legitimate sources of self-employment.
He congratulated the new leadership on their successful election and promised to sponsor the process of drafting a workable and functional constitution to guide the activities of the Association
In his remarks, the National President of the National Association of Tarakiri Youths Worldwide, Comrade Mienye Kareboh, requested for appointments and civil service jobs for members, operational office, an 18-seater bus, amongst other demands.
