Nigeria would soon boast of 13 campuses of the Nigerian Law School (NLS), given the approval of the Senate for the establishment of six new ones across the six geopolitical zones of the country, in addition to the existing seven, outside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The upper legislative chambers of the National Assembly, gave its nod for the additional campuses after considering and adopting of a report by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters on the Legal Education Act (Amendment) Bill, 2021.

The additional campuses are to be sited in Jos, Plateau State and Kabba, Kogi State for the North-Central geopolitical zone in addition to other campuses in Yola Adamawa and Maiduguri in Borno State for the North-East zone.

The North-West, would have the Kano Law School Campus, Kano State; and Argungu Law School Campus, Kebbi State, while South-East, would have the Okija Campus in Anambra to join that of Enugu that is already existing in Agbani.

The Senate also approved the Yenagoa Law School Campus, Bayelsa State; Port Harcourt Law School Campus, Rivers State; and Orogun Law School Campus, Delta State for the South-South zone, while the South-West, would add to the existing Lagos Law School Campus, the others that would be established in Ilawe, Ekiti State.

The Bwari Law School Campus, Abuja, remains exclusively for the FCT, according to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, who said the creation of the additional campuses was a legislative intervention to address “the exponential increase in the number of law graduates from our universities and foreign ones, coupled with the backlog that existed over the years.”

Bamidele who stressed that the existing campuses are overstretched and the infrastructures are not enough to accommodate thousands of law students graduating from the universities, added that the United States of America, with a population of over 350 million people, has about 237 law schools.