Some Nigerian professors have demanded that their salaries be raised to a minimum of N2.5m per month, insisting that anything less was no longer tenable.
On Tuesday, protests rocked several campuses as members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities decried the Federal Government’s failure to implement the renegotiated 2009 FGN–ASUU agreement.
Lecturers have long decried poor remuneration and declining conditions in the academic environment.
With professors earning about N500,000 monthly, some have been forced to squat in quarters, while others compete with students for space in buses meant for undergraduates.
Documents obtained by newsmen on Saturday shows that under the Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure, Graduate Assistants earn between N125,000 and N138,020 monthly, while professors earn between N525,010 and N633,333.
Assistant Lecturers earn N150,000–N171,487; Lecturer II, N186,543–N209,693; Lecturer I, N239,292–N281,956; Senior Lecturer, N386,101–N480,780; and Readers, N436,392–N522,212.
In an interviews, the professors insisted that their salaries should not fall below N2.5m.
A professor at the University of Ibadan, Remi Aiyede, said Nigerian professors were grossly underpaid compared to colleagues in other African countries.
He added that a government-commissioned report had already recommended similar figures.
He said, “If you want to benchmark it across countries, you will see that the monthly pay of an average professor across Africa is between $2,000 and $4,000.
“So, if you break that down to naira, then you will have an idea of what we are talking about. In fact, a million naira is conservative. Professors in Nigeria should not earn less than N2.5m monthly.