INTRODUCTION
The value of publishing legal articles and materials for academic promotion and assessment in Nigerian law faculties and related institutions remains a critical yet often misunderstood aspect of career progression in legal academia. As a seasoned academic with extensive experience in teaching, legal research, and publishing in law, I have witnessed firsthand how publication strategies can either accelerate or hinder advancement. This expanded discussion draws on established practices in Nigerian universities, insights from regulatory bodies like the National Universities Commission (NUC), Council of Legal Education and common experiences in law faculties to provide clearer guidance for junior and mid-career lecturers.
The aim of this paper is to clarify and provide guidance on the value and strategic role of publishing legal articles, materials, and other scholarly works in facilitating academic promotion and career assessment within Nigerian university law faculties and related institutions. The paper seeks to address the gap by:
a. explaining established practices in Nigerian universities regarding how publications contribute to promotion criteria.
b. Incorporating insights from regulatory bodies such as the Council of Legal Education, National Universities Commission (NUC), which sets minimum academic standards, oversees quality assurance, and influences promotion benchmarks through guidelines on research output, scholarly productivity, and institutional compliance (though specific point-based publication requirements for ranks like Senior Lecturer to Professor vary by university but generally emphasize peer-reviewed journal articles, books, chapters, and conference proceedings.
c. Offering practical, experience-based advice and mentorship for junior and mid-career lecturers to improve their publication strategies and thereby accelerate career progression.
In essence, the paper aims to demystify the assessment of publication process as a key driver of academic success in Nigerian legal academia, helping readers navigate common pitfalls and adopt effective approaches informed by real-world observations and regulatory frameworks.
Standards for Academic Promotion in Legal Academia
Academic promotion in Nigerian universities, including faculties of law, is governed primarily by institutional policies aligned with NUC guidelines and minimum academic standards. The NUC sets broad benchmarks for quality assurance, program accreditation, and staff advancement, emphasizing research output, teaching excellence, and community service. However, specific criteria for promotion (from Assistant Lecturer to Senior Lecturer, Reader/Associate Professor, and Professor) are often determined at the university level, leading to variations across institutions.
In faculties of law within Nigerian universities, peer-reviewed journal articles typically carry the highest weight for promotion. High-impact publications, particularly those indexed in databases like Scopus, or published in reputable foreign journals, for example, by international universities, research institutes, or established law reviews, are prioritized. These outlets demonstrate global visibility, rigorous peer review, and scholarly contribution, which are key for assessing research quality and international relevance.
National law journals do count, but they often need to meet thresholds such as having an online presence, ISSN registration, and evidence of peer review. Publications in predatory journals—those with lax standards, high fees, and minimal review—are increasingly scrutinized and may harm a candidate’s case.
This is slightly different from what obtains at the Nigerian Law School where book publications that reflects the vocational, practical focus of the Nigerian Law School and teaching materials that support bar vocational training hold more direct value. University policies vary significantly.
Promotion guidelines commonly include scoring systems for publications: academic books or monographs and original research score highly, for example, up to 10 points in some frameworks, while chapters in edited volumes or teaching manuals receive lower points. It is the opinion of this paper that authoring or contribution to textbooks and textbook chapters should also receive similar consideration given to journal articles.
External assessments by senior professors are mandatory for senior ranks, adding an element of peer validation.
Key Considerations for Lecturers in Publishing for Promotion
Several practical factors influence how publications are evaluated:
Not all outputs count equally. Many faculties limit credit to a specific number of book chapters (e.g., 2–5) or full textbooks, while requiring a minimum number of journal articles (often 5–25+ for lecturer II to professorial ranks, depending on the institution).
Articles in journals without an online presence, DOI, or verifiable indexing are frequently disregarded or undervalued.
Some institutions mandate a portion of publications in Scopus-indexed journals or those contributing to a strong Google Scholar h-index, reflecting a push toward global metrics and quality assurance.
Strategy matters:
Publishing one high-quality article per journal volume/issue is advisable to demonstrate sustained output without appearing to “salami-slice” research. Multiple articles in different volumes or issues of the same journal (even if department/faculty-affiliated) are generally acceptable if distinct and peer-reviewed.
Non-traditional outlets like newspapers, magazines, online blogs, or social media posts rarely count for promotion in reputable universities. While a few institutions may exceptionally credit them, for example, for public engagement, they are not standard academic output and can undermine credibility when seeking positions elsewhere.
The Critical Role of Mentorship, Stakeholder Responsibilities, and the Urgent Need for Uniform Standards
A major challenge confronting junior lecturers in Nigerian law faculties is the persistent inadequate mentorship from senior colleagues. This gap often results in misguided publication choices—such as over-reliance on low-impact national journals, predatory outlets, or non-peer-reviewed platforms—leading to frustration during promotion assessments, wasted scholarly effort, repeated rejections or undervaluation of work, and prolonged delays in career progression. Emerging academics frequently lack practical guidance on selecting reputable journals, crafting high-quality manuscripts, navigating institutional scoring systems, or understanding the differential weighting of outputs (e.g., Scopus-indexed articles versus textbook chapters). Without structured mentorship programs, junior staff may also miss opportunities for collaborative research, co-authorship with established scholars, or exposure to international publishing norms, further entrenching inequalities in advancement.
There is a pressing need for uniform national standards in academic promotion and assessment across Nigerian law faculties to minimize subjectivity, reduce institutional inconsistencies, curb bias (whether personal, regional, or generational), and promote equity. The National Universities Commission (NUC) already provides overarching Minimum Academic Standards (MAS) and Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) frameworks that guide program accreditation, quality assurance, and broad benchmarks for staff performance, including research output. However, these do not include the faculty promotion specifics, particularly in law, where variations persist due to differing university policies, dean-level discretion, and limited alignment with global metrics like Scopus indexing or h-index requirements.
The Nigerian Association of Law Teachers (NALT)—established in 1961 as the professional body representing law teachers nationwide and dedicated to promoting excellence in legal research, teaching, and education—remains best positioned to lead this reform. NALT has historically contributed to standardization efforts, such as developing uniform formats and citation guides for legal research (e.g., the NALT Manual on Uniform Format and Citation Guide for Legal Research). It should expand this mandate by convening stakeholders to draft harmonized promotion guidelines. These could include:
Minimum publication thresholds (e.g., number and quality of peer-reviewed articles for each rank).
Clear valuation criteria for different outputs and giving due regards to national journals the same way Scopus/Web of Science-indexed journals are prioritized by some university faculties as well as acknowledging chapter in books and textbooks publications like the Nigerian Law School does.
Protocols for external assessment to ensure timeliness and impartiality
Integration of NUC benchmarks with best practices from international legal academia.
NALT could advocate for adoption through annual conferences, policy papers, collaboration with the NUC, Council of Legal Education, and university senates, ultimately elevating legal education quality and reducing the “publish or perish” frustrations that drive brain drain. In achieving this, certain key stakeholders bear distinct but interconnected responsibilities:
Deans of Law Faculties should enforce transparent, publicly available promotion policies within their institutions, establish formal mentorship programs (for example, pairing juniors with seniors for publication guidance and mock assessments) and monitor compliance to prevent favoritism or arbitrary decisions.
Experienced professors and senior academics must ethically share expertise—through workshops, peer review support, and collaborative opportunities—while avoiding hypocrisy, such as critiquing predatory publications in juniors while having historical ties to questionable outlets themselves. True mentorship fosters a culture of integrity and sustained scholarly growth.
External Assessors and International Reviewers should uphold rigorous, consistent, bias-free standards. They should deliver report of assessment timeously without personal grudges, avoid payment of honorarium delays that influences their outcomes, or punitive attitudes, such as the notion that juniors must “suffer the same fate” as they did. International perspectives could introduce global benchmarks, enhancing credibility.
Unfortunately, unethical practices continue to undermine the system. “Intentional delays” in external assessment reports—often stretching from 1 to 4 years—are driven by nonchalance, disputes over assessor honoraria, workload excuses, or a misguided sense of “paying it forward” hardship. Such practices does not only demoralize qualified candidates but also exacerbate brain drain, reduce institutional research output, perpetuate inequities, and hinder national development by stalling the cultivation of high-caliber legal scholars and educators.
Vice-Chancellors, as chief executives, hold ultimate accountability for the promotion process. They must ensure prompt payment of external assessors, disseminate clear university and NUC-aligned policy guidelines to all reviewers, enforce timelines, for instance, mandating reports within 3–6 months, and decisively remove dilatory, conflicted, or unethical assessors from approved panels. Rigorous background checks on potential external examiners are essential, guided by the principle nemo dat quod non habet (“no one gives what they do not have”). Inviting assessors with documented misconduct, promotion irregularities, or predatory publication histories in their own records undermines fairness and institutional integrity.
Broader Implications of these challenges and the absence of reform are profound:
For individual academics: Prolonged delays and inconsistent standards lead to demotivation, reduced research productivity, mental health strain, and career stagnation—particularly affecting women, early-career scholars from less-resourced institutions, and those without strong networks—contributing to higher attrition and brain drain to foreign universities, private practice, or non-academic sectors.
For law faculties and universities: Persistent issues erode morale, weaken research culture, compromise accreditation prospects under NUC scrutiny, and diminish global competitiveness, as Nigerian legal scholarship struggles for visibility in international databases.
For legal education and the profession: Without high-quality, timely promotion of capable scholars, faculties produce fewer innovative educators and researchers, perpetuating gaps in curriculum relevance, teaching excellence, and contributions to national policy, jurisprudence, and justice reform.
For Nigerian society: It stifled academic progression limits the development of robust legal thought leadership needed to address pressing issues like economic sustainability, human rights, environmental law, and governance in a globalized context.
Addressing these through mentorship strengthening, NALT-led standardization, ethical accountability, and efficient Vice Chancellors’ oversight would foster a fairer, more efficient system, ultimately enhancing the quality of legal academia and its societal impact in Nigeria.
CONCLUSION
Publishing high-quality legal materials—particularly rigorous, peer-reviewed journal articles in reputable (preferably indexed) outlets—is indispensable for academic promotion in Nigerian university law faculties. While textbooks hold more sway at the Nigerian Law School, the broader academic ecosystem rewards impactful research that advances knowledge and gains international recognition.
Junior lecturers should prioritize mentorship, strategic publishing in quality journals, and alignment with institutional/NUC guidelines. Addressing systemic issues—through stronger NALT leadership, ethical assessments, timely processes, and uniform standards—will foster fairness, reduce frustration, and elevate legal academia in Nigeria.
These insights, drawn from years of observation and engagement, aim to guide emerging scholars in building sustainable careers while contributing meaningfully to legal education and jurisprudence.
From,
Dr. Akin Olawale Oluwadayisi, (Notary Public)
Ag. Head of Department, Jurisprudence and International Law,
Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko &
Fellow, Centre for Comparative Law and Jurisprudence,
University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Book Editor: Election Security in Nigeria and the United States of America
