Nigerian universities are facing a worsening brain drain as hundreds of top graduates leave lecturing positions within years of employment, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has warned.
Speaking at The PUNCH Forum in Lagos on Tuesday, Ogundipe disclosed that between 2015 and 2022, UNILAG recruited 256 first-class graduates as lecturers, but by October 2023, only 17 remained. The rest, he said, had quit in search of better prospects.
“At UNILAG, we decided that those with first-class honours should be employed. What is remaining is not up to 10 per cent. All of them have gone,” Ogundipe said, attributing the exodus to poor remuneration, harsh working conditions, and low morale.
The former vice-chancellor, who is now Pro-Chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Osun State, said unless the government dramatically improves funding, Nigeria’s higher education sector could face a gender imbalance and falling standards within the next decade. “Very soon, you will have only females in the universities if something is not done,” he warned, adding that postgraduate programmes risk admitting “people who are not supposed to come.”
He criticised government allocations to education, which have remained below 10% of federal and state budgets—well under UNESCO’s recommended 15–26%. Chronic underfunding, he argued, has left infrastructure decayed, lecturers poorly paid, and research support virtually non-existent.
“The consequences of chronic underfunding are immediate and profound,” Ogundipe said. “Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children worldwide, estimated at between 10 and 22 million. Over 60% of primary education funding is absorbed by teacher salaries, often with little left for capital expenditure or innovation.”
Ogundipe urged lawmakers to legislate a guaranteed ₦1bn annual allocation for each first-generation university while calling for new funding strategies that extend beyond government. He advocated public-private partnerships, alumni endowments, philanthropy, diaspora investments, and education bonds linked to measurable outcomes.
“The private sector should see education support not just as social responsibility but as enlightened self-interest in building the workforce, the talent, and the markets of tomorrow,” he said. “To alumni, home and abroad, remember that the institutions that made you now need you.”
He added that innovative financing models—such as debt swaps for education, performance-based investments, and corporate-backed research—could help bridge the sector’s vast funding gap, estimated globally at $100bn annually for low- and middle-income countries.
For many young academics, however, the pressures remain acute. “Many of our colleagues are tired,” Ogundipe said. “By the time you get home, there is no light, and the Federal Government is saying they are giving us ₦10m to access as loans. You can see how our lives have been devalued.”
