The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has raised alarm over a growing mass exodus of senior academics from Nigeria’s public universities, revealing that no fewer than 309 professors have resigned in just nine months in search of better working conditions abroad.
The revelation came during a town hall meeting organised by the ASUU Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS) branch, where the union’s Zonal Chairman for Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, and Katsina States, Professor Abubakar Sabo, described the situation as an “intellectual haemorrhage” threatening the survival of Nigeria’s public universities.
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“From the last action we had until now, we lost about 309 professors — some to private universities in Nigeria, others to the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, and beyond,” he said.
Sabo noted that Nigeria’s poor working conditions and stagnant remuneration have driven many scholars out of the country, resulting in the loss of intellectual capital critical to national development.
He warned that ASUU may embark on a two-week warning strike if the Federal Government continues to neglect its demands for improved welfare, earned allowances, and university funding.
“We have been patient long enough. Our duty is to salvage public universities. If the government continues to ignore us, we will not fold our arms while the system collapses,” Sabo declared.
He accused the government of frustrating negotiations, alleging that despite the submission of the Yayale Ahmed Committee report in January 2025, no tangible action has been taken. Sabo claimed the government invited other tertiary unions to “complicate” the process — a move he described as a deliberate ploy to overstretch the education budget.
The union’s demands include better remuneration, full implementation of previous agreements, respect for university autonomy, and adequate funding to restore academic standards.
Meanwhile, ASUU-UDUS Chairperson, Professor Muhammad Almustapha, said the town hall meeting was convened to alert Nigerians to the deepening decay in the education system and the government’s failure to keep its promises.
“Over the years, ASUU has, unfortunately, become synonymous with strikes because government hardly honours its promises. It has become a cycle of broken promises and dashed hopes,” Almustapha stated.
The meeting, which brought together lecturers, students, civil society groups, and journalists, ended with a call for urgent national intervention to stem the brain drain and prevent the collapse of Nigeria’s university system.
ASUU and the federal government have a long history of broken agreements, including the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and the 2020 Memorandum of Action, which the union claims have been repeatedly ignored or only partially implemented.
The last major ASUU strike — an eight-month shutdown in 2022 — paralysed academic activities nationwide and exposed the deep cracks in Nigeria’s higher education system.
Today, with soaring inflation and a weakened naira eroding the value of fixed salaries, many senior academics say it has become financially impossible to remain in Nigerian universities — fuelling the ongoing academic exodus.