The House of Representatives has begun efforts to address the long-running dispute preventing more than 5,000 law graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) from proceeding to the Nigerian Law School for professional training and Bar examinations.
The intervention followed a petition submitted by the affected graduates, who said they had completed their Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programmes but remained unable to continue with the professional stage of their legal education.
The House Committee on Public Petitions invited NOUN and the Nigerian Law School, which operates under the Council of Legal Education (CLE), to provide explanations concerning the dispute at an investigative hearing held on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. Neither institution appeared before the committee, although both submitted letters explaining their absence and requesting another date.
Representatives of the affected graduates told lawmakers that they should not be disadvantaged by disagreements among government institutions after completing their academic programmes.
The graduates’ association’s Public Relations Officer, Chibueze Obochi, said the group had explored other avenues before seeking the intervention of the National Assembly.
He referenced Section 18(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which provides for equal educational opportunities, arguing that the graduates should not suffer the consequences of disputes between NOUN and the regulatory authorities.
A major issue in the disagreement concerns a list of 1,883 NOUN law graduates submitted to the relevant authorities in 2019. Obochi argued that the description of the list as graduates produced “so far” should not be interpreted as meaning that it represented every graduate who would eventually emerge from the programme.
He further maintained that the 2015 suspension of admissions into the LLB programme should not affect students who had already been admitted before the suspension.
According to the graduates’ representatives, affected students possess matriculation numbers and other records indicating when they gained admission to the university.
How the Dispute Began
NOUN traced the disagreement to 2015, when a National Universities Commission (NUC) accreditation team visited the institution to assess its LLB programme.
The university said that while it awaited the outcome of the accreditation exercise, the Council of Legal Education took a position against admitting NOUN law graduates into the Nigerian Law School.
NOUN subsequently suspended further admissions into the LLB programme in 2015, saying the decision was intended to prevent the number of affected students from increasing while regulatory issues were being addressed.
Between 2015 and 2019, the university said it engaged the CLE and other stakeholders in an effort to resolve the eligibility of its graduates for professional legal training.
In 2019, NOUN submitted a list of 1,883 graduates to the CLE while appealing for their admission into the Nigerian Law School. The institution later discovered that 90 graduates had been inadvertently omitted, bringing the figure at that time to 1,973.
According to NOUN, the Body of Benchers subsequently approved a Special Remedial Programme for the university’s law graduates in 2020 rather than granting them direct admission into Bar Part II.
The university later submitted another group of 2,226 graduates who had completed their studies between 2019 and May 2022 for consideration.
NOUN said the CLE rejected the subsequent submission, citing, among other issues, an alleged understanding that the 2019 list represented the total number of NOUN law graduates and an allegation that the university continued admitting students into the programme after 2015.
NOUN has disputed that claim, maintaining that admissions into the LLB programme stopped in 2015 and were not subsequently resumed.
Law School Requests New Hearing Date
The Nigerian Law School also failed to appear at the September 16 hearing. Its Director-General, Dr Olugbemisola Odusote, reportedly cited official engagements involving relevant officials and requested that another date be fixed for the institution to appear before the committee.
The petition was presented before the House on July 21, 2026, by the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Publicity, Akin Rotimi.
Rotimi has expressed support for efforts to address the grievances of the affected graduates and called for a lasting resolution to the matter.
The House committee’s investigation is expected to examine the positions of NOUN and the Nigerian Law School, particularly the regulatory issues surrounding the LLB programme and the eligibility of the affected graduates for professional legal training.
The outcome of the process could determine the next steps for thousands of NOUN law graduates who have completed their university education but remain unable to proceed to the Bar training stage.
