A Hausa interview by a professor from ABU lamenting over academics’ poor pay is trending and has re-ignited the debate on the salary of Nigerian academics on social media. The debate is championed by my brothers from the region considered by the country as educationally less developed. I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t said before. It will be like repeating myself.
Professors in Nigeria are now blamed for their financial status. They are expected to stop lamenting and get a side hustle to augment their salaries. A professor whose salary was ₦450,000 in 2009 when the exchange rate was ₦140 per dollar is blamed for his economic state in 2025 with a salary of about ₦500,000 when the exchange rate is ₦1,600 per dollar.
Some people are making reference to professors abroad as if some of us have not been there. A number of us studied and worked there and know how their university system works. I got 2 grants in the UK during my PhD. They said a professor earns more abroad from their research grants. The greatest beneficiaries of research grants are postgraduate students and postdocs. Professors are not paid from their grants.
Grants have a budget and personnel costs are not there. They are paid to the university account and managed by the university. The university pays the professors to be comfortable to think and attract grants for the university. A university lecturer around the world is paid enough to give him the comfort to think and do his job as it should. Any extra cash from stuff like consultancy is for extra comfort.
The Executive Secretary of TETfund, Sunny Echono in July 2024 said: “On salary to lecturer, I feel ashamed because I have the privilege to represent Nigeria at a global conference where former presidents and prime ministers were in attendance. I was asked if it was true that a professor, after 20 years, still earns less than a thousand dollars a month. I couldn’t answer that question; I only said that we are doing something about it.” I think we should be proud of the salaries of our professors and boldly tell anyone around the world their actual salaries.
Before you, in your narrow-minded state, blame professors for their financial status, ask yourself why the Nigerian government will pay the same professors about two thousand dollars per month under the Technical Aid Corp (TAC) to go help teach in universities in some African countries? The same professors who are given about 2,000 USD to teach in Ugandan universities under TAC are taking an equivalent of 320 USD per month at home.
You know what? Everyone is right. Those for and against. The argument won’t change anything and it will end in about a day or two. The new reality is that the younger academics have learned from the effect of the commitment of senior colleagues to the academic job. The commitment you considered as “our stupidity”. The younger academics are planning for themselves.
A colleague, after the 8-month strike and the withholding of our 8-month salary, said the university does not deserve his full time. That he is going to give the university the time it deserves and use the large chunk of his time for a side hustle to pay his bills. I thought he was unreasonable. I later realised I was the unreasonable one. And he is not doing badly from the side hustle.
Around this time last year, I was passing and met some of my students in the class without the lecturer. In my usual chat with the students, I asked whose lecture it was. It was a younger colleague I decided to call him that students are waiting for his class in case he forgot. He picked up the call and said he forgot he had a class, but that he is on his farm planting, and that he will see them next week. He was at the farm during work hours and forgot he had a class because the farming hustle is paying the bills. He is actually not doing badly with his side hustle.
Farming during work hours becomes more important. I reflected on that for several days. There are several examples of young academics who now won’t be seen on campus except they have a lecture or are on campus for something they personally consider important.
People sometimes question why a whole professor will accept to be an adviser or assistant to a political office holder. A trip with the political officeholder boss could get him his one-year gross salary as a professor. Since it’s his fault to be poor, so, tell me why he shouldn’t accept such an offer or even lobby for it?
As a consequence of defeat, we have accepted one awkward thing as a part of us. Because we can’t do anything about our tormentors and needed someone to blame, we put the blame on ourselves, the victims. It’s our fault that we have been on the same salary for 16 years from 2009 to date. It’s our fault that successive governments refused to renegotiate the 2009 agreed salary with ASUU. It is our fault that the government of President Tinubu has kept his Yayale Ahmed’s 2009 Renegotiation Committee report since November 2024 without speaking about it. They are still studying it possibly till May 2027 or beyond.
Universities are meant to attract the best brains from across the world. Universities, including African universities in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Chad, etc, are attracting our best brains while we are justifying the poor pay for academics and we still blame the academics for their inability to compete with their colleagues in the UK, US, and Iran. We’ll keep breeding our best brains for these countries.
Meanwhile, as we take all the blame for our economic status as professors, the younger academics are devising a way to survive. They don’t want to be like their senior colleagues who bury themselves in their books thinking they are serving the country. They are given more time for their side hustle to pay the bills and leave the students hanging. They’ll attend to them when they can. The system will bear the consequences of the neglect and our survival plans.
From a reality check, you can’t think when you are hungry. So, what are your expectations when your thinkers are hungry and you are unfortunately justifying it? We are perhaps on a journey of illusion if you are expecting a man to go look for food to eat elsewhere to think for you. The future will tell who gains and who loses.
Best wishes to all of us!