A former President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Professor Sola Akinrinade, has called for a major upward review of university lecturers’ salaries, insisting that no professor in Nigeria should earn less than N2.5 million per month.
Speaking with journalists on Monday, Akinrinade described the current remuneration of Nigerian academics as grossly inadequate, arguing that lecturers especially professors are among the lowest paid globally and earn far less than their peers across Africa.
According to him, the present pay structure amounts to “slave wages” and fails to reflect the value, expertise and responsibilities associated with the professorial rank.
“I became a full professor in October 1999. Today, what we take home is about N584,000 monthly, with a gross salary of roughly N700,000. That is embarrassingly low by global standards,” he said.
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Akinrinade noted that even earlier benchmarks had become unrealistic due to inflation and the depreciation of the naira. He recalled that in 2017, a senior official at the Federal Ministry of Finance had argued that professors should not earn below N1 million monthly.
“If in 2017 N1 million was considered the minimum, anyone can calculate what that figure should be today, considering economic realities,” he said. “For me, a professor should not earn less than N2.5 million every month.”
Under the current Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS), graduate assistants earn between N125,000 and N138,020 monthly, while assistant lecturers take home between N150,000 and N171,487. Lecturer II salaries range from N186,543 to N209,693, Lecturer I earn between N239,292 and N281,956, and senior lecturers receive between N386,101 and N480,780. Readers earn between N436,392 and N522,212, while professors earn between N525,010 and N633,333 before deductions.
Recent assessments have also shown that Nigerian academics rank among the lowest paid in Africa. On average, Nigerian professors earn about $366 (approximately N500,000) monthly, translating to roughly $4,400 annually.
In contrast, professors in South Africa earn over $57,000 per year, while their counterparts in Kenya earn about $48,000. Other African countries such as Eswatini, Lesotho, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Comoros also offer significantly higher annual salaries to university professors.
Akinrinade warned that poor remuneration continues to undermine academic productivity, weaken morale and limit the global competitiveness of Nigerian scholars, stressing that urgent action is needed to prevent further decline in the nation’s higher education system.
