Tunde Adeoye, a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Lagos, has advised the Federal Government to urgently review the salaries of lecturers to avert another strike.

Mr Adeoye gave the advice in an interview on Wednesday in Ota. He was reacting to the nationwide protests initiated by the Academic Staff Union of Universities across the country.

According to him, the federal government needs to be sensitive to the plights of lecturers and engage them in renegotiating the 2009 agreement, with the major issue being the improvement of the salary structure for academics.

Mr Adeoye said, “The ASUU members equally have families and aged parents to cater for. As it is now, many of our members cannot pay their house rents. Many of our members who were sick have died, while some with hypertension cannot even afford to buy their routine drugs.

“Most lecturers in our universities lecture on an empty stomach and do the work of four persons because of the federal government’s embargo on employment across the institutions.”

Mr Adeoye stressed the need for the federal government to increase the salaries of university lecturers to reflect the current economic realities in the country.

He pointed out that the salary of a professor in a Nigerian university is approximately N500,000, excluding deductions, which reduces it to about N300,000 after deductions are made.

He noted that in some African countries, such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, lecturers were paid better than in Nigeria, and urged the federal government to make concerted efforts toward improving the living standards of lecturers and their working conditions to prevent brain drain.

(NAN)