Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has criticized the Council for Legal Education (CLE) over its refusal to admit graduates of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) into the Nigerian Law School.

Speaking with some members of the NOUN Law Students Association of Nigeria and other alumni of the university at his Hilltop mansion in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Obasanjo said he had written the CLE over the controversial issue.

Obasanjo, a two-time student of NOUN, said the reason given for the alleged restriction is baseless, arguing that he received physical lectures during his studies at the school.

“I’ve written to the CLE but it seems some people out there didn’t get it right," he said.

"They said the school of law is offering correspondence programmes and I said it to anyone I met that I graduated from the school and I am presently running my master and Ph.D in NOUN, so the notion is incorrect."

The former President said CLE's action will be resisted because it undermines the institution.

He however urged the graduates to be patient with the authorities as accreditation is pursued.

Obasanjo enrolled at NOUN for a Post Graduate Diploma in Christian Theology at the university in November 2006, graduating in 2009 before returning for a Master’s Degree in the same field.

Only last month, NOUN Vice Chancellor, Professor Vincent Ado Tenebe, CLE embargo over its graduates.

In a recent interview, he said the distance learning system offered by NOUN is inevitable because there are far too few universities in the country to be able to serve the entire Nigerian population.

Obasanjo's degree itself shld be withheld or totally cancelled