Brain drain to hit universities as lecturers relocate overseas

OurNigeria News
3 min readSep 13, 2022
Brain drain to hit universities as lecturers relocate overseas

Brain drain to hit universities as lecturers relocate overseas

There is still no end in sight to the industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, especially with the case now before the National Industrial Court, Abuja division.

Our Nigeria News inquiries showed that universities would soon be hit by brain drain as some lecturers are already on their way out of the country.

The students, as well as parents, suffer the most in this impasse due to the undue elongation of academic sessions with its attendant toll on the economic fortunes of parents and guardians.

Right from the previous administrations, the academic unions had embarked on several strikes to express their grievances over the federal government’s non-responsiveness towards the welfare of their members, as well as the infrastructural deficit that has marred the tertiary institutions in the country.

Suffix it to say that there was no administration since 1999 that did not witness the ASUU strike, but the latest which started on February 14, 2022, after a 14-month-strike notice from the union had further crippled the educational system.

Though the Federal government had at different times attempted to break the deadlock by engaging the striking union in meetings and negotiations, the strike had continued.

ASUU had made seven key demands from the federal government, which include: funding of revitalization of tertiary institutions; Payment of outstanding Earned Academic Allowances (EAA); review of the NUC 2004 Act to tackle the proliferation of Universities, and 26 percent budgetary allocation to the education sector.

Our Nigeria News gathered that the federal government had met some of the demands but ASUU refused to shift ground due to previous experience with the FG in not honoring agreements.

The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu attributed the lingering strike action to the union’s failure to come to a compromise, noting that no demand can be satisfied 100 percent by any government.

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Adamu said the FG has offered a 23.5 percent salary increase for lecturers of all categories and a 35 percent increase for professors, describing the offer as the “best” the federal government could do, even as he noted that the increment will take effect from January 2023.

He added that the FG had resolved to release N200 billion in 2023 budget for the revitalization of federal universities, to pay outstanding earned allowances, as well as ensure prompt payment of allowances as they arise to all deserving staff, adding that the FG would uphold the ‘no work, no pay policy.

The Minister noted that the present administration would not be cajoled into endorsing unrealistic agreements with ASUU as done by the previous administration just to douse tension, saying that ASUU should come to terms with Nigeria’s present economic realities.

However, these conciliatory offers never moved ASUU, which is bent on getting 100% of its demands implemented. Though it is obvious that ASUU’s refusal is based on the minister’s stance on the government’s earlier resolve not to pay striking lecturers for the period they did not work, his silence on the timeline for the release of the outstanding N1.2 trillion arising from the 2009 and 2012 agreements is another issue.

Brain drain to hit universities as lecturers relocate overseas

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OurNigeria News

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