As the current industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) enters its second week on Monday, many of the lecturers in the ivory towers have concluded plans to abandon the country for greener pastures abroad. This indication emerged during the week as the non academic unions in federal institutions are also said to be planning to join their academic counterparts in the ongoing strike.
Japa options
Multiple sources within the education sector informed Saturday Telegraph that many of the aggrieved lecturers in Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and colleges are now considering the Japa option, and some have even gone ahead to apply for study leave abroad.
Checks by the Saturday Telegraph, however, revealed that the growing economic hardship, insecurity, and poor working conditions are part of the issues triggering a mass exodus of lecturers from universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education across the country.
A university administrator in one of the leading universities said the ugly situation had been going on for about two years. The professor, who prefers to be anonymous, said: “This has been the trend for well over two years. The system is hemorrhaging seriously. Colleagues are leaving, and units are suffering”.
Hundreds resigning
Investigations by our correspondent further revealed that hundreds of academic staff have resigned in recent years to seek better opportunities abroad, as the economic hardship in Nigeria continues to bite harder, a position recently buttressed by ASUU.
Stakeholders in the education sector are now lamenting that the “menace” is worsening as the shortage of qualified lecturers in key departments is threatening the quality and stability of tertiary education in Nigeria.
One of the top ASUU leaders in the South West explained that it was agreed by the lecturers that the posture of the Federal Government to invoke the ‘no work, no pay’ order should be ignored and that the academics should move away from their present predicament.
“The order has further worsened the situation. We are going to leave their schools for them. Those who are leaving are already applying for leave”, he said.
ASUU leaders lament
The Chairman, ASUU branch of the University of Abuja, now Yakubu Gowon University, Sylvanus Ugoh, informed Saturday Telegraph that the majority of the lecturers who have left the country in search of greener pastures never had the intention of ever relocating to other countries.
Ugoh, who lamented that the decision was occasioned by the poor working conditions and welfare of lecturers, regretted that lecturers in Nigeria were living like beggars despite all the hard work and efforts they put into their jobs.
He said: “It is obvious in almost every skilled specialised sector in this country, from the lecturing side to the medical side, the job of freedom is becoming a menace, and then if we don’t do anything about it, it will tell on the economic situation, even the political situation of the nation.
“Many of the people leaving are not leaving because they want to leave. They are leaving because they are not surviving here. They are literally begging. “A lecturer who has studied from a first degree, got to the master’s, got to the Ph.D., and most of the time, self-sponsored, and he receives peanuts as salary.
“That cannot even take care of him, not to talk of his dependents, and so once he sees any opportunity to leave the shores of this nation, he will definitely leave. Not because he doesn’t want to serve his nation, not because he doesn’t want to serve his fatherland, but he has to survive first before he can serve.
“We train these people using the nation’s resources. At the time they are supposed to serve the nation, the nation says, No, we can only train you, but we cannot pay you.” Ugoh also regretted that the education sector is losing “a lot of talents,” while noting that the situation “is having a serious effect on the socio-economic status of the country and it’s affecting the educational sector.”
Another official lamented that many universities are now using the junior cadre to augment the exit of professors. “We are putting Senior Lecturers in class to take the position of doctors and professors, but it is the students that we are short-changing.”
Recalling the past
Recalling the era when Nigeria had expatriates who were academic staff and foreign students in public schools, both federal and state, the ASUU Chairman lamented, “But today, we can’t even attract anybody from outside this shore because what we are paying as salary is too infinitesimal to attract such manpower.
“So it’s really a problem for the educational sector, the academia. The Japa syndrome is a problem, and we are losing our energetic youths to this Japa syndrome because they must survive.”
To change the narrative, Ugoh insisted that the government must commit to sincerity of purpose, prioritise manpower development, and properly fund the universities. “No nation in the world has developed beyond its educational system.
The university system becomes the yardstick to measure how far any nation can go, and so, any country that wants to develop must not take the development of the university system for granted, and that means the government must go out of its way to fund the institutions, which will include paying the lecturers what will keep them working in the land.
“Lecturers are not well treated when it comes to remuneration. So, you teach a student, he graduates with a first degree, his salary will be two or three times yours, and you are both working in the same environment.”
ASUP laments
Also speaking, the immediate past President of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Anderson Ezeibe, lamented that lecturers in Nigeria are “the worst hit” when it comes to conditions of service in Africa. “I’m not even talking about the whole world, just Africa here.
We’re about the worst, so who wants to stay? The conditions are so bad, so terrible. There’s no water, no place for chemicals or re-agents, you don’t have power, you don’t have good offices.
So, virtually nothing works.” Lamenting the poor treatment lecturers in Nigeria receive from the government, Ezeibe noted that when lecturers travel abroad, they are usually able to experience better conditions of service, a better work environment to hire a researcher, and are motivated to work hard, “so they stay back because they get better, and it’s not good for our system.
He added that, “the system is not supportive; people migrate to a place where their work gets better conditions. So, if we can have conditions of service that are comparable to what is obtainable globally, rest assured that our scholars will stay.”
The former ASUP President warned that the Japa syndrome is denying students the benefits of scholarly output from Nigerian lecturers who decided not to return to Nigeria after their training abroad. “If the government wants to reverse this trend, they have to make the country scholarly attractive.”
Asked if the government should put a stop to overseas academic scholarship pro- grammes, Ezeibe argued that the programme should continue as knowledge, which, he explained, was universal and without boundaries, cannot be stopped. “Knowledge is universal. It will be better if our own people also go abroad as scholars or lecturers.
Then we should also have support from all those countries to come here and add some value to our own education system. “But what it has been is a one-way traffic for now. Everybody is going in one direction, and I’m saying that it is not good for our system because it denies the system of quality lecturers and skilled lecturers.”
ASUU’s earlier response
Just last week, ASUU accused the Federal Government of frustrating its members and encouraging the exit of 309 professors from public universities.
The Zonal Chairman for Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, and Katsina States, Professor Abubakar Sabo, revealed the mass exodus of senior academics from public universities, saying over 300 people who resigned within the last nine months are in search of better working conditions.
He also lamented that many of the scholars are relocating to the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, and other countries. “From the last action we had until now, we lost about 309 professors, some to private universities in Nigeria, others to the UK, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, and beyond.
“Our intellectual capital is being drained because the conditions of service no longer make it possible for many to stay and teach,” he said.
