The immediate past President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Prof. Sola Akinrinade, has called for a major upward review of lecturers’ salaries, saying no university professor in Nigeria should earn less than N2.5 million monthly.
Speaking with The PUNCH on Monday, Akinrinade described the current remuneration of Nigerian lecturers as “slave wages,” noting that professors in the country are among the worst paid in Africa and globally.
He said Nigerian professors currently earn an average net salary of about N584,000 monthly, with gross pay around N700,000, a figure he described as grossly inadequate in view of prevailing economic realities.
“For me, no professor should earn less than N1.5 million a month, and that was before the current devaluation. With inflation and currency depreciation, a professor should not earn less than N2.5 million monthly,” he said.
Akinrinade recalled that in 2017, a senior official at the Federal Ministry of Finance had suggested that professors should earn at least N1 million monthly, stressing that the figure has since been overtaken by economic changes.
According to findings by The PUNCH, Nigerian professors earn an average of $366 monthly, far below their counterparts in countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Gabon.
He warned that poor remuneration discourages academic productivity and weakens Nigerian lecturers’ bargaining power internationally.
His comments come as the Federal Government prepares to finalise a new agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which includes a proposed 40 per cent salary increase for academic staff.
— The Punch
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