While working at the Nigerian Railway, Elias became an external student of London University, and later he passed the intermediate examinations for the B.A. and LL.B degrees. He left Nigeria for the United Kingdom in 1944 and was admitted to University College London. As this was during World War II, with London the target of frequent bomb attacks, he spent some time at Cambridge's Trinity College. He graduated with a B.A. the year he entered University College London and two years later received the LL.B. In 1947 he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, where he was a Yarborough Anderson Scholar, and in the same year received his LL.M degree. He continued his graduate education and became the first African to earn a PhD in law from the University of London in 1949.