Nigeria is losing its brightest minds, and UNILAG is just the latest warning
239 first-class lecturers exit in seven years as brain drain cuts across classrooms, hospitals, and tech hubs
When a university can no longer keep its best lecturers, the nation is in deeper trouble than it realises. That was the sobering picture painted this week by The PUNCH, which reported that 239 first-class graduates employed as lecturers by the University of Lagos (UNILAG) between 2015 and 2022 have left the institution. Only 17 remain.
The revelation came from the institution’s former Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who traced the mass exit to poor pay, weak infrastructure, and a lack of motivation.
In his words, what was once a deliberate effort to recruit Nigeria’s brightest minds has now collapsed into a revolving door, with young academics walking out almost as quickly as they are hired.
But UNILAG’s story is not unique. It is part of a much wider crisis. The same forces are emptying Nigeria’s hospitals, where doctors and nurses leave in droves for the UK, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.
They are draining the country’s tech hubs, where software engineers trained at home are now powering startups in Europe and North America. Even in engineering, oil and gas, and other skilled industries, the pattern is clear: those who can are leaving.
At the heart of it all is a simple equation: poor pay, poor conditions, poor prospects. For lecturers, the classrooms are crumbling, research funding is nonexistent, and salaries can hardly sustain a middle-class life.
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For health professionals, hospitals lack equipment, salaries arrive late, and opportunities for growth are scarce. For tech talents, the frustration of building in an unstable economy makes relocation the only rational choice.
What this means is that Nigeria is bleeding talent across its most critical sectors. When universities lose their brightest lecturers, students lose mentors and role models. When hospitals lose their best doctors and nurses, patients lose lives. When industries lose their innovators, the economy loses its competitive edge.
The PUNCH’s revelation about UNILAG is, therefore, not just about one institution. It is a mirror held up to a nation that continues to underfund education, undervalue professionals, and undercut its own future. UNESCO recommends that countries spend at least 15 to 26 percent of their budgets on education; Nigeria barely manages 7 percent, and often less. Health budgets are no better.
The result is that Nigeria is not just exporting crude oil, it is exporting its brightest minds, free of charge.
Unless the government acts with urgency, revaluing pay, rebuilding infrastructure, and rethinking how to keep its talent, Nigeria will find itself in a decade where its universities are half-empty, its hospitals understaffed, and its industries lagging behind. And by then, the talent would already be long gone, serving elsewhere.
