Former OAU vice-chancellor Wande Abimbola warns that Nigerian universities face collapse as professors earn less than a U.S. gardener’s three-hour wage and calls for an immediate federal bailout.
Former vice-chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Professor Wande Abimbola, has described Nigerian professors’ salaries as “scandalous,” lamenting that their monthly earnings are lower than what a gardener in the United States makes in just three hours.
Speaking at a lecture titled “Nigerian universities: Tower of crises, citadel of missed opportunities. Can the lost glory be reclaimed?” Abimbola disclosed that professors receive about N500,000 monthly, roughly $300. “Nigerian universities are slowly dying before our very eyes. It is a big shame,” he said, urging the federal government to provide an immediate bailout to rescue higher education.
The 92-year-old scholar, who also served as Senate Majority Leader and currently teaches in the U.S., recalled that Nigerian universities were once among the world’s top 500. “When I left as vice-chancellor in 1989, our institutions were still at their peak. However, a mere five to ten years later, I revisited the university and was brought to tears by the level of decay,” he stated.
Abimbola criticised the creation of new universities despite inadequate funding of existing ones and called for a Commission of Inquiry to recommend reforms. He warned that impoverished professors can no longer attend international conferences or publish research. “If the government is not interested in supporting these universities, they should just shut them down,” he asserted.