Twenty-five-year-old Opeyemi Longe is used
to blazing the trail in the academic world. For 13 years, many students had
tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to bag a first class Bachelor’s degree in the
Faculty of Law of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State.
But, in 2012, the native of Omuooke-Ekiti
broke the jinx and emerged the first student to graduate with a first class
degree from the faculty.
Not done with this feat that has earned him
accolades and admiration, Longe, who was admitted to the Abuja campus of the
Nigerian Law School in October 2013 for the one-year mandatory vocational legal
training for aspiring lawyers in the country, pledged to keep the flag of
excellence flying.
Apart from being one of the four students that
shined at the 2014 Part II Final Bar Examination of the NLS, Longe has also
emerged as the first law graduate of the AAUA to obtain a first class degree
from the 51-year-old institution.
The other successful students who obtained a
first class degree at the NLS this year are Ikechukwu Uzoma from the Lagos
campus of the NLS who graduated from the Abia State University, Uturu; Anita
Omonuwa (Abuja Campus), a graduate of the University of Reading, United
Kingdom; and another student from the Bayelsa campus of the school.
The mass failure recorded at the law school
this year has remained a subject of discourse among legal luminaries and
educationists. According to the summary of the result posted on the NLS
website, mynls.com, only
3,418 out of the 7,176 registered students passed the examination.
About 527 students had conditional passes,
while 3,100 failed. Some of the students were said to have abstained from the
examination.
The PUNCH sought to speak with the outstanding graduates produced
this year at the Law School on the secret of their success in the examination.
Longe, who had eight distinctions — including
four A1s — in all the subjects that he offered at the West Africa Senior School
Certificate Examination in 2005, said he set out from the beginning to graduate
with a first class degree.
Having performed the same feat as an
undergraduate of a relatively new state university, he said, the development
had placed on him a burden to defend the result at the Law School.
Longe added that it was imperative for him to
prove that the result he obtained at the AAUA was not a fluke and that he would
have bagged the same class in any university in the country.
He said, “When I finished from the university,
I became the first person to graduate with a first class degree in a faculty
that had existed for 13 years and this placed on me a burden to defend this
result at the Law School.
“I knew that I was expected to prove that the
first class I got was not a mere fluke and that I could not afford to have
anything less.
“Besides, I had always believed that I could
be the best student in any school I attended. For this reason, I have been the
best student in all the schools that I have attended, starting from primary
school.
“Therefore, I saw no reason why the Nigerian
Law School should be any different. What I needed to do was to make myself
realise I could do it and so it became my drive to make a first class.”
He noted that his attendance at social outings
and programmes were very minimal, adding that he did it on purpose with a view
to achieving his academic goals.
Describing the mass failure as unprecedented,
Longe stated that he did not employ any special reading strategy to post an
exemplary academic performance.
The third child in a family of six, however,
explained that he studied “very hard” from the beginning of the one-year
programme, adding that he bought at least two recommended text-books for each
of the five courses offered at the NLS.
He said he never toyed with group discussions
organised by the school management, adding that the special arrangement gave
him the opportunity to learn from his colleagues.
He said, “In each of the five courses offered
at the Law School, I have at least two textbooks recommended by the school and
I did not just purchase them for the fun of it. I took my time to study each
and every one of them and you will be amazed what effect they had on me.
“They gave me the privilege of having a good
grasp of those courses, perhaps far above what I was expected to know. There
may actually not be a special reading strategy, but I know I was disciplined in
my studies.
“I worked very closely with the lesson plan
made available to all of us. So I ensured that I studied for each lesson before
the class and carried out the pre-class assignments and this is where the issue
of disciplined study comes in.
“I told myself, ‘You must not do anything else
unless you are ready for tomorrow’s class.’ In this wise, every other thing I
needed to do came after I was satisfied of being prepared for the class of the
following day.”
Although Aba-born Uzoma, who hails from the
Nkwerre Local Government Area of Imo State, graduated from ABSU with a
Bachelor’s degree in the second-class upper division, he etched his name in
gold this year as the first ABSU Law graduate to obtain a first class degree at
the law school.
The 2007 alumnus of Dority International
Secondary School, Abayi, Aba, Abia State, whose childhood dream was to be a
legal practitioner, stated that he had always nurtured the ambition of having
an excellent result to aid his “future educational and career goals.”
Going down memory lane, Uzoma said, “My childhood
dream was to study law. I grew up saying I would be a lawyer for no particular
reason. As I approached my decision years, I realised that my dream had moulded
me into a frame that could only accommodate the studying of law.”
Noting that there were many distractions at
the Lagos campus of the Law School, Uzoma stated that he withdrew from social
functions organised by his colleagues, adding that he mostly participated in
academic and religious activities.
“Wisdom directed my affairs while in the law
school. I withdrew from several responsibilities I had outside school and my
church, Commonwealth of Zion Assembly, besides, I adopted a regimented sleeping
schedule, especially towards the exams. I did not join my family for the last
Christmas and Easter holidays. I used those periods to rest and study Besides,
I put in extra efforts to redeem any lost time.
“Cardinally, I had a way of keeping my focus
strong and getting very involved in the curricular activities in school. As a
group leader in the Lagos campus, I ensured that I was personally involved in
all the assignments and I found some time to study. My constant dissatisfaction
with my inability to meet some personal targets spurred me on to stretch and do
more. I also kept a small circle of friends with whom I studied,” the
25-year-old stated.
Noting that academic studies at the law school
were quite demanding, the young lawyer, born to a pharmacist father, explained
that the challenging “new learning environment” toughened his resolve to
“succeed irrespective of my condition.”
Stating that he refrained from “memorising or
cramming a lot,” at the law school, Uzoma said he sought to “understand how the
law works and I applied every principle to everyday life.”
Just as the Deputy Director-General and Head
of Lagos campus of the NLS, Mrs. Toun Adebiyi, alleged that many of the
students who failed were preoccupied with social media rather than their
studies, Longe and Uzoma said they withdrew from social networking during the
academic programme.
“Throughout my period at the Law School, I was
significantly away from the social media such that some of my friends accused
me of avoiding them, Longe said.
Uzoma also stated, “I stopped contributing to
discussions online and my degree of online activity greatly reduced.”
Acknowledging the commitment of the law school
management in ensuring that students pass the examination, Longe and Uzoma
noted that not all the unsuccessful candidates were unserious, as alleged by
the authorities.
Longe said, “Depending on the way you want to
look at it, the management may be right to an extent because some students were
just too unserious to pass. That is not to say that the majority of the student
population were unserious.
“There are students who took pleasure in
coming late to class, pinging, chatting and holding separate discussions when
lectures were going on.
“But the sudden reduction of the time for the
multiple choice questions from one hour to 50 minutes without adequate notice
affected some students because they prepared for the exam on the assumption
that they had one hour for the exams.”
Uzoma, who noted that the Final Bar Part II
Examination had a “peculiar grading structure,” unlike other regular
professional examinations, argued that it would be difficult to prove that the
majority of his colleagues failed because they were unserious.
“I cannot say that the majority of my
colleagues failed because they were unserious. I do not know how that can be
proved. There may have been some unserious folks in my set but I cannot say
that the majority of my colleagues were unserious,” Uzoma stated.
The two Law school graduates, who are waiting
to be called up for the mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme in
November, have already received offers to join the academic staff of the Law
Faculty of their respective alma maters.
But they have said they would love to practise
law, as well as pursue postgraduate degrees up to the doctoral level before
considering to take up the offer.
Noting that they both seek to take advantage of
available scholarship opportunities, Longe and Uzoma indicated interest in
obtaining master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Birmingham, UK
and Harvard University, United States respectively after undergoing the NYSC
programme
