UK Law Personal Statement for Nigerians (LLB, LLM, JD)

In November 2023, I watched a 22-year-old man at Lagos Magistrate Court spend 4 hours waiting for his case to be called, only to be told the magistrate had not arrived. He had been remanded for 11 months on a charge of trespass. His mother had paid ₦80,000 in bribes. That experience, more than any book, made me understand why I want to read law.

From H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law I have learned to distinguish primary and secondary rules. From Ronald Dworkin’s Law’s Empire I have absorbed the case for principle-based interpretation. In Nigerian legal scholarship, I have engaged with Itse Sagay’s writings on constitutional federalism.

I have completed 87 hours of court observation at Lagos Magistrate Court and Federal High Court. I shadowed a senior barrister at Aluko & Oyebode for 4 weeks. I served as Legal Aid Volunteer for the Network of African Civil Society Organizations, helping intake interviews for 14 detainees seeking representation.

I am drawn to constitutional law and criminal procedure — areas where the gap between legal text and legal practice in Nigeria is widest. I am also interested in international law as it applies to West African regional integration: the ECOWAS Court’s expanding human rights jurisdiction (illustrated by SERAP v Federal Republic of Nigeria) opens questions about supranational adjudication.

I am Editor of my school’s law journal, the Loyola Legal Review. I represented Nigeria at the Africa Schools Moot Court Competition in Nairobi, placing second.

After my LLB, I plan to read for the BPTC at one of the Inns of Court, then return to Nigeria to join a Lagos law firm focused on constitutional and human rights litigation.