Nigerian Senate laments over Brain Drain .. advocates increase of budgetary allocations to Universities

It was lamentation galore in the Nigerian Senate on Tuesday over the increasing spate of brain drain in the Nigerian Universities in particular and some other critical sectors .

In curbing the increasing spate of the problem in Nigerian Universities , the Senate called for increase in yearly budgetary allocations for them to tackle infrastructural decay and enhance monthly enumerations of lecturers .

It also mandated its relevant committees to relate with Ministries of Finance , Education, Health and other relevant agencies to work out modalities for checking Increasing spate of brain drain .

Senate’s resolutions followed a motion sponsored to that effect by Senator Anthony Ani ( APC Ebonyi South).

Senator Ani in the motion titled : ” Urgent Need to address the challenges of increasing cases of Brain Drain in the Nigerian University System”, lamented that contained in the National Universities Commission (NUC) report, many Nigerian Universities operate with less than 50 percent of the required academic staff due to brain drain .

According to him, the remunerations of the Nigerian University Lecturers are among the poorest in the world, as it was last reviewed over 15 years ago and this cannot meet the current economic realities of the country.

He added that many universities in other Western African Countries have better working conditions than what is obtainable in the Nigerian university system, and this rather worrisome;

“Brain drain has assumed an unprecedented posture in recent time, 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”, he said .

Many of the Senators who contributed to debate on the motion, submitted that the problem is not limited to the Universities but some other critical sectors like the health sector where doctors and Nurses , are leaving their jobs in droves on yearly basis for greener pasture in abroad.

In his remarks after exhaustive debate on the motion , the President of the Senate , Senator Godswill Akpabio said : ” Brain drain is a big problem not just in the education sector but in some other critical sector like the Health sector where not let down 22,000 Nigerian Health Workers are in the United States of America alone .

” We shall surely do our best to improve the lots of Universities teachers and others , in curbing the problem “