Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), has revealed that 239 first-class graduates who were employed as lecturers abandoned the institution within seven years due to poor salaries and unfavorable working conditions.
Speaking at The Punch Forum on Tuesday, August 26, Ogundipe explained that UNILAG employed 256 first-class graduates between 2015 and 2022, but only 17 remained as of October 2023. “What is remaining is not up to 10 per cent. All of them have gone,” he lamented.
He further disclosed that in 2015, 86 were employed; in 2016, 82; while between 2017 and 2022, 88 were recruited. Yet, within a few years, almost all had exited for better opportunities abroad or in other sectors. He warned that if nothing urgent is done, universities may struggle to retain male academics, saying: “Very soon, in the next 10 years, you will have only females in the universities if something is not done.”
Ogundipe linked the mass exodus to poor pay, lack of motivation, and worsening conditions of service. He stressed that Nigeria’s chronic underfunding of education — with less than 10 per cent budgetary allocation compared to UNESCO’s 15–26 per cent benchmark — was crippling research, infrastructure, and digital advancement.
According to him, “The consequences of chronic underfunding are immediate and profound: Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children worldwide, estimated at between 10 and 22 million. Over 60 per cent of primary education funding goes to salaries, leaving little for capital projects or innovation.”
He called for urgent reforms through innovative financing such as public-private partnerships, alumni endowments, philanthropic support, education bonds, and technology-driven investments. He also urged alumni to give back to their alma mater through donations, mentorship, and research funding, while civil society and the media sustain pressure on the government to make education a national priority.
