The union lamented that the development was affecting the university system, attributing the exodus of Nigerian lecturers to poor remuneration.
It added that the situation was responsible for the dearth of university teachers in the country.
ASUU is currently on a month strike, saying the industrial action will be comprehensive and total.
“NEC resolved to embark on the four-week roll-over total and comprehensive strike as the government has failed to implement the Memorandum of Action it signed with the ASUU in December 2020.
“We invite all lovers of education to join our struggle for a greater Nigeria. Nigerian politicians keep proliferating educational institutions without prioritising education.
“ASUU will not relent in its historic responsibility of advocating an improved university system. This is because it holds the key to our collective prosperity and better future for our children and our children’s children; so, let us work together to fix it.”
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, stated that while countries like Ghana, the United Kingdom and United States of America were paying their varsity lecturers attractive and competitive salaries, the case remained different in Nigeria.
He explained that though university lecturers were always employed from all over the world, Nigeria was experiencing a deficit because foreign lecturers were no longer seeing the need to teach in the country due to poor remuneration.
Osodeke specifically said while a professor in a Nigerian university earned $700 per month, his counterpart in Ghana was paid $3,000, adding that in the United Kingdom, a professor would go home with between £8,000 and £10,000 per month.
He said, “Lecturers are recruited from every part of the world, not from a particular country. We have thousands of Nigerian lecturers across the world. You go to Benin Republic, go to South Africa, go to the United Kingdom; you have Nigerians teaching in all these countries.
“But because of our poor remuneration, nobody is coming to teach in Nigeria. That is the deficit; while some people are going out to teach outside, nobody is coming in to teach here because of the poor remuneration.
“A professor is earning about $700 a month in Nigeria; would he leave the UK where he is earning between £8,000 to £10,000 to come and teach in Nigeria? Would he leave Ghana where he earns between $2,000 and $3,000 to come and teach in Nigeria? No! That is the deficit.
“So, when Nigerians are going to teach in other countries, nobody is leaving these countries to teach in Nigeria as we had in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. That is why we are having this shortfall.”
Explaining that the dearth of lecturers in the nation’s universities had forced government to devise a means of employing persons with poor academic qualification as lecturers, Osodeke lamented that graduates with Third Class now found their way into the university system as lecturers after going for their Post-Graduate Diploma.
“In some cases now, those who have no business with lecturing have been packed into the system. Some would have Third Class, and they go to the university and get Post-Graduate Diploma and say they want to become lecturers.
“This should not be accepted anywhere. But we have them now because of the deficit. That is why they are packing people in. So, we still have a crisis in the system.
“Nigerian lecturers who have left the shores of this country are in the tens of thousands. Go to the UK, America, Malaysia, and South Africa, they are just all over the place. I think in two countries, Nigerians were Vice Chancellors.
Credit; Punch.