Why lecturers are leaving Nigerian universities in droves

• Of those left behind, 3 do jobs of 8 – ASUU president

• Lift ban on recruitment, review salaries, pay backlog, FG told

Ahmed Bawa is a professor of Accounting and, until recently, the Dean of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences at Modibbo Adamawa University, Yola, Adamawa State. He resigned from his job in November 2023 after 23 years in the ivory tower, forced by circumstances that made thousands more like him emigrate for greener pastures or perish under the weight of low means in spite of the accumulation of degrees.

A recent report indicates that lecturers from Nigerian universities are leaving en masse, just like medical doctors, further driving the country to the edge of a brain drain.

“I really love to be in academia; that has been my passion and my childhood dream, and what I like the most in life is to teach, undertake research, and contribute to the development of my society through education,” Prof. Bawa told the Daily Trust in an interview.

He listed multiple reasons for leaving his beloved lecturing job and, top among them, poor conditions of service. He said, “With all my qualifications and working experience, my salary as a professor for so many years is N364,000. This was compounded by the eight-month strike by lecturers with no pay, and when the pay eventually came, it was halved by the government.

“It was hell for so many of my colleagues. The pain of seeing my colleagues undergo the difficulty they went through was heartbreaking. Even when we came back from the strike, I saw my colleagues in hunger, but because of our love for students, we went ahead and continued. To our greatest dismay, instead of paying the full salary, half salary was paid,” he said.

The don said the painful decision to leave was also because his conscience would not allow him to use time for academics for other professional practices to the detriment of academics. “So I had to resign and leave. It is a really difficult situation, and the system is bad.”

However, lecturers’ leaving the universities is beside the fact that many universities had been established and approved in recent years, requiring qualified teachers, while many were retiring from exiting schools.

A vice chancellor at one of the federal universities who didn’t want to be mentioned told Daily Trust that the Nigerian university system was suffering from inadequate lecturers and thus needed to recruit PhD holders in relevant courses.

He said, “The old ones are retiring without replacement, while the new ones from the government are usually misfits, and as such, the universities fail to employ their first-class graduates because they are not allowed to recruit.”

A recent media report (not the Daily Trust’s) indicated that universities in Nigeria were faced with a huge shortage of lecturers, including Usmanu Danfodiyo University, where about 100 lecturers left the institution.

The varsity’s ASUU chairman, who confirmed this figure to the Daily Trust, said a total of 350 lecturers are currently needed at the school to meet the shortfall occasioned by those who have died, retired, or resigned.

The ASUU chairman blamed the challenge on the bureaucracy and the embargo placed on lecturer recruitment by the federal government for the gross shortage.

Also, a source from the University of Uyo confirmed to the Daily Trust that 100 staff, including lecturers and non-academic workers, have resigned and travelled abroad, thus leaving gaps in the institution.

Why lecturers are leaving varsities – Academia

The ugly trend, however, cuts across most public universities in the country as lecturers are resigning and leaving in search of better opportunities.

Dr Abubakar Ringim is a lecturer at the Federal University, Dutse, Jigawa State. Although he could not give specific figures, he however confirmed that the exodus of lecturers from his school is further depleting the already low number of academic staff members.

He said: “It is true that people are losing interest in the profession, including myself, because of too many problems of understaffing, underfunding, corruption, lack of motivation, etc. I think anyone who has attended any public university has seen a lot.”

Ringim said the trend may not be reversed until the government gets serious about human capital development.

He said private universities are on the increase and the public ones are deteriorating, adding that there are over 200 applications for more private universities before the National Universities Commission (NUC).

“Any system that is understaffed and underfunded cannot go anywhere. People in that system are left with no option but to leave if they have any alternative. Those that stay back will never give their best due to a lack of or poor motivation and appreciation,” he said.

The Director, Ibrahim Usman Jibril Institute for the Built Environment, Nasarawa State University Keffi, Professor Nasiru Medugu Idris, said some universities are losing their lecturers as a result of several factors, which included switching from one institution to another within and outside the country.

“There are also cases of retirement, death, and resignation to take up jobs in other public and private sectors,” he said.

He said each university has its peculiarities, adding that, like Nasarawa State University Keffi, “we have cases where some lecturers retired, some have died, and some have resigned and taken up appointments elsewhere, but most of them were replaced during the last recruitment exercise that took place recently.

“In addition, my university has also given appointments to retired academics as contract staff, while others were given appointments on sabbatical and visiting.

He said the shortage of academic staff in Nigerian universities could be addressed if the federal government lifts the embargo on recruitment and the state governments follow suit.

Meanwhile, the ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said the records of lecturers leaving the system can be confirmed at immigration.

He said: “Check, you will see that Nigerian lecturers are leaving in droves because of how they were treated in the past eight years. In 2019, when we had an agreement with the government on salary increases, what we positioned there was about $3000 per month, but today the salary of a lecturer is just about $400 equivalent per month.

“Over the past eight years, the way the government has treated our members, the union, they say no work, no pay and they ate our eight months’ salaries. As I am talking to you now, most of the big universities in the world are busy coming to this country to recruit our people because they need them, because there is a shortage of lecturers all over the world.”

Prof. Osodeke further said: “They are recruiting, and our lecturers are leaving because a lecturer who earns $300 here in Nigeria will go outside and be earning $5000 to $7000, so they will leave.

“I believe that this government needs to urgently do something because those of us who are remaining are forced to do the jobs of eight lecturers; our members are stressed, and they are dying,” he said.

Way forward

Having ascertained that the system is challenged and needs rescuing, the ASUU president said the way forward is for the government to meet up with the demands of the lecturers.

“There is a crisis in the system; a crisis that if not curbed, in 10 years’ time, we will not recover from what is going on now. So I pray that this new regime will have to do something urgently by paying all the backlog of salaries they owe lecturers and allowances, which nobody is talking about again.

“Secondly, negotiate a proper salary with the lecturers; they are different from other workers. University is universal; you can teach anywhere. So if you want to recruit, you don’t have to leave Nigeria to look because everyone is here. So I am pleading with this government to do something urgently to save this country, to save the university, and to save our youth.”

On the way out, Dr Ringim said all the necessary suggestions had been given to the government a long time ago, yet the government had yet to adopt or implement them.

“Several MOUs were signed between the government and ASUU on how to improve the system, but the government doesn’t respect those MOUs. It is only when ASUU goes on strike that the government will rush to implement one of a few things. What system is this?” he queried.

He said ASUU has been lobbying for the federal government to adopt the Nimi Briggs report since 2014 without success.

According to Prof. Nasiru Idris, the shortage of academic staff in Nigerian universities can be addressed if the federal government lifts the embargo on recruitment while the state governments also do the same.

“The ban on recruitment is still in place at the federal level. Therefore, this current government can lift the ban so that universities can advertise for vacancies in various fields. There are so many PhD holders in the labour market that are seeking to join the teaching profession, but there are no vacancies,” he said.

“I was receiving applications for employment for different cadres during my time as head of department and dean of the Faculty of Environmental Science. Even now, as director of the Ibrahim Usman Jibril Institute for the Built Environment, people are still calling me for inquiries.”

Also, Prof. Bawa suggested that the government should declare a state of emergency on education, security, and agriculture because “we cannot afford to move anywhere with what we are doing at the moment.

“It is very unfortunate that we have leaders who are visionless and governments upon governments that are very myopic. No nation will develop beyond the level of its education. To say that we don’t have money to fund education is a sign of wickedness,” he said.

He stressed that Nigeria has not developed to the level of privatising its education, and therefore the government must continue to subsidise education.

“Today, it is rather unfortunate that we see graduates who will contribute nothing to society or add value to it.

“Our talents are meant to be distributed across the country—in the villages, towns, cities, and borders—but because of the neglect we have now, there is no systematic means of capturing those talents across the country,” he said.

While noting that what is happening now is preventing a lot of talents from going to school, he said what gave America the advantage it has now is that they are attracting the best from all the world; that they create equal opportunities for everyone to prosper, but that Nigeria is adopting policies that push the best out of the system.