The Senate has urged the federal government to increase the allocations to federal universities in the 2025 budget to check brain drain.
Additionally, it directed its relevant committees to work with the Ministries of Finance, Education, Health, and relevant organizations to devise plans to address infrastructure deterioration and raise lecturers' monthly pay.
The Senate's resolutions came after a motion titled "Urgent Need to Address the Challenges of Increasing Cases of Brain Drain in the Nigerian University System," presented by Senator Anthony Ani (APC, Ebonyi South).
Ani said brain drain is the reason many Nigerian universities are operating with less than half of the necessary academic personnel, as per the National Universities Commission report.
He emphasized that the pay for university instructors in Nigeria was among the lowest in the world and had not been reviewed in more than 15 years, making it out of step with Nigeria's current economic situation.
He further highlighted that several colleges in other West African countries offered better working circumstances than what was available in Nigeria, describing the situation as highly disturbing.
He said, “Brain drain has assumed an unprecedented posture in recent times due to the current economic situation of the country. This should be a cause for concern, as it threatens the survival of the country’s higher education, particularly in the engineering, medicine, and sciences, which are critical for the socio-economic development of this country.”
The Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, emphasized the gravity of the problem in his remarks following the debate, saying, “Brain drain is a big problem not just in the education sector but in other critical sectors like the health sector, where no fewer than 22,000 Nigerian health workers are in the United States of America alone.
“We shall surely do our best to improve the situation for university teachers and others in curbing this problem," he added.
