NILDS trains 300 lawyers in legislative drafting

The National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, NILDS, says it has trained no fewer than 300 young legal practitioners in legislative drafting under its specialised internship programme.

The institute’s Director-General, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, disclosed this at the News Agency of Nigeria Personality Interview Series in Abuja on Sunday.

Mr Sulaiman ​‌‌⁠⁠⁠‍‍⁠⁠‌‍​‍​⁠‌⁠‌‌​said that the initiative was conceived to address the shortage of skilled legislative drafters in Nigeria and across the African continent.

“We observed that legislative drafters were in short supply in this country. People come from other African countries asking us to assist them.

“So, I introduced the scheme; young graduates that are lawyers, law students, as long as you have second class upper or first class, you can apply for the legislative drafting internship here for three months.

“We put you through pro bono, without paying a kobo. Through this, we’ve been able to produce about 300 young drafters for this country,’’ Mr Sulaiman said.

He further stated that the institute had, in the last seven years, reformed its human capital policies, contributing to job opportunities and career advancement to young Nigerians by opening its doors to more youth corps members.

The director-general said that under his leadership, NILDS had scaled up annual intake of corps members from four to more than 60, as part of its efforts to build capacity for young Nigerians.

“Before I took over, it was a policy that the institute shouldn’t take more than four National Youth Corps members in a year.

“I saw it as an aberration as a training institute; if you don’t train the younger ones, then who do we train? Allow them to come in. So, I made it open.

“Today, we have almost 60 to 70 youth corps members here that we are training every year,’’ he said.
NAN