From Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
Professor Mubashiru Olayiwola Babatunde Mohammed of the Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, Lagos State University, has recommended a minimum monthly salary of N1.2million for a newly appointed professor in Nigeria.
He also suggested that a newly emp[oyed Graduate Assistant on SS01 should go home with nothing less than N350, 000 per month.
Prof. Babatunde Mohammed made the recommendations while speaking in his capacity as the 85th Inaugural Lecturer of the Lagos State University at the Buba Marwa Auditorium of the institution at Ojo on Tuesday, September 27, 2022.
The topic of the lecture; ‘A Phylum Mollusca Approach to University Education in Nigeria: Save the Bridge from Collapsing’.
Speaking to the media on issue of salary for university lecturers, Prof. Babatunde Mohammed said “I have made recommendations that for a newly entrant who is a Graduate Assistant on SS01 should go home with at least N350, 000. What is the parameter, what is the basis? and I said every lecturer in the university is involved in three things, the first one is teaching, the second one is research, and the third one is community service. So if you put all of these together as parameters, we are saying they should be able to pay them N350,000 as the newly entrant and a new professor should earn N1.2million monthly.”
He said it has become obvious that the broad aims of producing high-level manpower for National development for which the university education is meant for is not really being achieved as a result of the multifaceted problems bedevilling the administration of the university system, adding that it has become necessary to suggest ways of making the system more effective and efficient in relation to contemporary Nigerian society and thereby saving the bridge from collapsing.
Professor Muhammed said the essence of the lecture is to talk about the attitude of the government of Nigeria towards issues that concern education. “We are saying if this thing continues like this, the bridge which is the higher education that supposed to serve as a link towards the realization of the potentialities of man, that the bridge is already collapsing, the bridge will collapse, if care is not talking.”
He therefore made some recommendations that included, Granting autonomy to universities, volatile and militant students unionism, combating secret cult, De-politicisation of the university system, public-private partnership in universities, Need to improve infrastructure base, and Upward review of pay package for academics.
Speaking on ASUU problem, he said “The government should actually look immediately into the problem which is between it and ASUU so that public universities will not collapse in Nigeria and that there is also need to have full fledge autonomy of university in Nigeria. There is no need of quasi, semi or partial autonomy, secondly when you have full autonomy then it will reduce certain problems that currently the university system is facing.
“I also recommended to the university the need to have continuous and regular dialogue with students because we are ministers in their best interest, without students I have no business becoming a professor, and so, the students, they are occupying a prime position in the university sector, we should listen to them. Don’t look at them as if they are nonentities, they have nothing to offer, no, discuss with them, negotiate with them, dialogue. So these are some of the things government and university management can do to save the bridge of university education in Nigeria from collapsing,” Mohammed said.
He also has some advice for the students “My advice to students is that the students should not assist in the collapse of the bridge, they have their own roll too to play. Some students are also involved in some nefarious activities like cultism, gangsterism, and hooliganism, those things that they are doing, they will have negative effects on the institution that they claim to have; they should desist from them.”
He said the strike by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) is a Phylum Mollusca, saying that it is not the best approach to solving the problems in the universities. “That a union goes on strike is a Phylum Mollusca in solving the problem of university education, and strike is also contributing to the collapsing bridge. For example, they have been on strike for over 200 days, the bridge is collapsing. The London Bridge is falling down, we must save the London Bridge from falling down and our London Bridge is the university education in Nigeria which is collapsing.”
He commended LASU for doing her best to save the bridge from collapsing. “So what I am thinking is that the state universities, by the time the federal universities negotiate and get something, the state universities will still come back to their proprietors to begin another round of negotiation, and they will tell you, well, we were not part of the negotiation at the federal level, they are not compelled, so that is why some universities that are sensible are now beginning to think, look, let us be very careful, let us be wise in the way we join them hook line and sinker, let us think twice.
“That is why LASU today is one of the very few universities that are saving the bridge of university education from collapsing,” he disclosed.
Earlier he explained what the topic of the lecture meant “I have carefully chosen the words ‘Phylum Mollusca’ to describe the inept approach towards the management of affairs in the Nigerian university system. What is phylum Mollusca? Why is an educational manager interested in Phylum Mollusca approach to education? And how is it related to higher education in Nigeria? Phylum means a direct line of descent or linkage within a group which represents the university education as a linkage between the town and gown. Mollusca are sluggish, decelerate, and slow animals with soft bodies which inhabit fresh water as well as terrestrial habitats such as snails, octopuses, squids, oysters, clams, and so on. The term “Mollusca” was coined by Aristotle to mean “soft”. This can be likened to the fragile nature of the education system, which needs to be handled with great circumspection. Due to the slow movement in tackling the problems in Nigerian university education, the Mollusca have come to put heavy weights on the bridge of university education as there is the need to find quick ways of solving the myriads of problems, so that the bridge does not collapse.”
