By Saidu Idris
365Daily – Dr. Sam Amadi, a Baze University Law lecturer, has responded to critics who queried the integrity of the Abuja based private university’s degrees recently awarded to some politically exposed individuals at the last convocation ceremony of the school.
According to him, the school did nothing wrong in the duration of the study for the award of the degrees.
According to Dr. Amadi, the critics lacked basic information about how university programmes are run. He explained that Law degree in Nigeria is a 10-semester work, and one could complete it either in five or three years, depending on whether a school runs a programme of two or three semesters a year.
Many of the critics had mocked the university for allegedly gifting the academic degrees to the prominent graduands for a possible fee. They also queried the integrity of the process that made the affected individuals obtain the degrees in seeming record time.
Among the elite graduands at the recent ceremony as earlier reported by 365Daily included former lawmaker, Senator Dino Melaye, who represented Kogi West Senatorial District in the Senate; Osita Chidoka, former Aviation Minister and Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, who represents Anambra South Senatorial District in the Senate.
Ubah is also the candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), in the coming November 6 Anambra State governorship election.
But explaining further, Dr. Amadi said, “People have been writing about one getting a law degree in three years or five in Nigeria. Of course typical of Nigerian debate there is little effort at rigor. A law degree in Nigeria is ten semesters work.
“If you do two semester a year it will take five years. If you do three semesters a year it will take three and half years. If you have a degree and do trimester you finish in two and half years. So use your tongue to count your teeth.
“But the quality of education in Nigeria, whether law or medicine is very poor. Bad pedagogy, poor faculties and almost zero quality Journals.
“So even if you stay 20 years in Nigerian university you will probably come out poorly educated. Of course, you are smart, very smart, but poorly educated. So you make it up by going abroad or reading up. Sorry, that’s it.”