The Council of Legal Education has imposed a 10-year ban on five law students found guilty of examination malpractice during the December 2025 Bar Final Examination.
The disciplinary action was approved at the council’s third-quarter hybrid meeting held on August 13, 2026, at the Nigerian Law School headquarters in Bwari, Abuja.
Announcing the decision in a statement issued on Sunday, the Secretary to the Council and Director of Administration, Aderonke Osho, said the sanctions followed the consideration of reports submitted by the Examination Misconduct Committee.
According to her, the council upheld the committee’s findings and disqualified the affected candidates from participating in the Bar Final Examination for the next 10 years.
The council also sanctioned two other students over separate cases of misconduct bordering on indiscipline, although details of the offences and the penalties imposed were not disclosed.
The identities of the affected students and their institutions were also withheld.
Beyond disciplinary matters, Osho said the meeting reviewed a range of policy, academic, regulatory and administrative issues relating to legal education and the operations of the Nigerian Law School.
The latest sanctions come months after the council released the results of the 2025 Bar Final Examination, in which 1,067 of the 7,602 candidates who sat the examination failed.
The examination produced 212 first-class graduates, while 1,216 candidates obtained second-class upper division. Another 2,961 earned second-class lower, 1,622 recorded ordinary passes and 314 secured conditional passes.
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The council also reported that 210 candidates were absent, with the overall pass rate standing at 79.1 per cent, lower than that of the previous year.
The performance was weaker in the 2026 Bar Final resit examination, where 983 of the 1,955 candidates failed, representing 50.3 per cent of those who sat for the examination. Only 883 candidates passed, translating to a success rate of 45.3 per cent.
The Bar Final Examination is the final qualifying assessment conducted by the Nigerian Law School for law graduates who have completed the institution’s vocational training programme. Passing the examination is a mandatory requirement for admission to the Nigerian Bar and enrolment as a legal practitioner.
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