UI ex-DVC, Ayoola, writes Tinubu, seeks improved salaries, emoluments for varsities' staff
The immediate past University of Ibadan (UI) Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) in charge of Administration, Prof. Ezekiel Olusola Ayoola, has written an open letter to President Bola Tinubu on the plight of the lecturers and the need to rescue deteriorating Nigerian universities.
The letter, titled, “On the low Morale Among Academic Staff in Nigerian Federal Universities,” was made available to The Guardian, yesterday, in Ibadan.
Ayoola lamented poor funding of the university system, saying it has led to low motivation and brain drain. The former DVC said the primary purpose of the letter was to call the attention of the President to the plight and condition of service of academic members of staff of public universities in this dispensation.
He said: “The morale among this category of staff has never been this low since I was hired as an academic staff member at the University of Ibadan in 1989.
“It is time for the President to approve a comprehensive significant wage increase for academic staff in public universities. Special packages should be worked out to attract and retain top-level and productive academic staff. Many have died because of poor wages and unaffordable healthcare expenses. Sedentary lifestyles are major characteristics of the academic profession. People have to sit down in the libraries, laboratories and their study rooms for long hours each day, thereby developing at later stages of life some sicknesses that are consequent upon such lifestyles.”
He said that many could not afford standard local and overseas treatment due to the paucity of personal funds, adding that, on the other hand, politically exposed persons and technocrats in government and other juicy sectors of the economy can afford such local and overseas treatment because of resources available to them.
Ayoola said that the current salaries of the academic staff could not support such trips and treatments, adding that the academic staff should be considered for living wages because of their contributions to manpower development in all sectors of the Nigerian economy.
