On countless occasions, people who knew me from my previous job have asked me one or more of these questions: What does it take to become an academic? What does life as an academic/lecturer in Nigeria entail? How do I get a job as an academic? While it is obvious that I am unable to answer the last question, I will attempt to address the other two and much more, in this blog post.

This is expectedly a long blog post but, especially in these times, a lot of insight is needed. Here are some of the things I believe all Nigerians must know and questions they must ponder before taking the leap. Please use the navigation below to quickly move around the various sections:

Who is an academic?

An academic is someone who has acquired high educational qualifications such as a Master’s degree, or more appropriately a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and works in an institution generating and/or disseminating knowledge in that specific area in institutions such as universities, colleges of education, polytechnics and research institutes.

Why do people become academics?

As mentioned above, anyone aspiring to become an academic will need to acquire more education than most. Many people who dream of becoming an academic graduate with good grades and immediately proceed to obtain the needed higher qualifications. Many of them are driven by a love for teaching others; a passion for research; a drive to be at the cutting edge of, and contribute to, knowledge; or a dream of influencing the next generation of youth through a shared love for an academic area. I personally know someone who joined academia because they wanted to be constantly surrounded by people with higher than average intellect. Many also love some perceived eccentricities typically associated with many cerebral and accomplished academics (think: Prof Wole Soyinka’s famous afro, and the famed principled natures of academics).

On becoming an academic

The requirements to become an academic vary from country to country, and within countries, it also varies depending on the specific discipline. In the west, including the United Kingdom where I obtained my Ph.D., some lecturers have teaching-only roles, especially in the arts and humanities. A few others have research only roles while the vast majority combine teaching and research roles. To describe it simplistically, in the Science fields, one would go from Undergraduate (>>Masters) >> Ph.D. >> Post-doctoral research >> Research (or Teaching) Fellowship >> Lecturing. In the humanities, the route goes PhD >> Post-doctoral research/Part-time teaching roles >> Research or Teaching fellowship >> Lecturer.  Research only roles are scarce and basically only exist for as long as the lecturer is able to win research grants.

In Nigeria, basically, you will apply for a lecturing job at the University of your choice at any of the Undergraduate, Masters, or Ph.D. levels. In the Nigerian University system, exceptional graduates are retained in their departments as Graduate Assistants (GA; Level 1) while more commonly, First Class degree holders are commonly offered employment as Assistant Lecturers (AL; Level 2). Many graduates who love academia, or more commonly in my experience are unable to find immediate employment, commence a Masters, and then a Ph.D. rather than losing time during the job search. For many, they get their dream jobs and move on to other industries outside academia while others see the programs through.

Unfortunately, there is no recent data readily available in the public domain but 2006 data shows that 40 % of Nigerians who are 25 years and older have no schooling while 1.6 % have a Master’s degree and higher. A good proportion of this elite group applies directly to lecturing jobs at some point, as there are no post-doctoral, teaching assistant, or research assistant/fellowship positions available in most universities in Nigeria. Similarly, there is no split in the roles of an academic in Nigeria, so a typical academic holds a teaching and research position.

So you want to be an academic? Eight (8) questions to ask yourself

Since you have read this far, I assume you are seriously considering becoming an academic/ lecturer. So, how much of the intricacies of academia do you truly know? Have you spoken to academics about this desire of yours? Here is a list of questions I will suggest you ask yourself in order to appropriately determine if academia is the ideal place for you.

• How much do you love constantly studying in your field of under- or post-graduate study? You will carry out postgraduate studies and supervise students in a specific research niche. If you are curious and love learning, then academia is for you. Do you have the patience to continuously undertake related research? Or as my colleague who left after his Ph.D. to go work in a brewery eloquently put it do you “constantly live with the feeling that you are trying to reinvent the wheel”? The mini-eureka research moments are some of the best parts of life as an academic, for me.
• Are you ready to do a lot of unpaid work (work that you are not paid or otherwise compensated for)? In the United kingdom, teachers/lecturers are reported to do the most unpaid and invisible work. All your research work, required for promotions are normally done in your personal time. Similarly, note formation and grading and recording are carried out in your free time after work. Not to mention writing up to five reference letters monthly, and helping students from other departments with thorny research issues.
• Are you self-motivated and self-organizing? Academics’ time is not structured; in most universities, academics are not confined to an office from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. This is great because it gives you the academic freedom required to write in huge chunks of time, attend meetings or go seek collaborations, etc. The downside to this is that you are expected to be a self-motivated individual, who can self-start projects and work with minimal supervision. People who need to be micromanaged may not make good academics.
• Do you like a challenging and dynamic environment? Academia is never boring as you will belong to and even head diverse committees as you advance in your career. You have a good mix of activities: note formation, teaching, invigilation, assessments, practicals, administrative roles, etc. Most academics have at least one administrative role such as Academic/Level Adviser, Examination Officer, Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) Coordinator, etc. Also, note that there are huge misconceptions in the public space regarding the typical work conditions of an academic. If you are like me, then you must have heard that “Lecturing is the best job for a woman, as you only go to work when you have lectures” (yen yen yen). I-laugh-in-marking-scripts-till-2-am. This is the most fallacious myth which can most readily be debunked by almost every academic in full-time employment, but which still strangely persists. In fact, I still had to debunk this claim today which precipitated my finally publishing this post. University academics are widely described as being unburdened and having flexible time, whereas in truth, the majority have not had a 3-week leave in decades. So if you plan to have a work-life balance of any sort, and I cannot possibly stress this more, ignore the grapevine. Get reliable insider secrets from trusted academics in the university you are considering before you make the leap, to avoid a rude shock.
• Do you thrive in ultra-competitive environments? If so, then academia is certainly the place for you. It is a highly competitive space as you have to compete with your peers for increasingly fewer spaces at the top of the pyramid that is the academic hierarchy. You also have to compete for scarce research grants, training scholarships etc.
• Do you have the temperament to work with teenagers and understand the psychology of their behaviours? In your role as an academic you will need to form sometimes personal relationships with several students in order to effectively mould, motivate and mentor them. These are daunting tasks, especially in a society in which social and moral values are in flux, and which suffers a dearth of responsible role models. If you like academic life but do not want the challenges of working with students, then you may want to find work in a think tank, or as a technocrat somewhere. I personally consider it unfortunate when academics do nothing to mentor and grow youth in their direct care e.g. project students; it is such a waste of a perfect mentoring opportunity.
• Are you able to weather unending petty and unnecessary bickering by the society on- and off-line? Frequently, students, government image makers, parents and other university workers with perceived grouses with academics will harass you for seemingly inexplicable reasons. Sometimes, you will be tarred with the same brush as the bad eggs in the profession. Can you be empathetic, still?
• Lastly, but very importantly, are you ready to live a life of paucity, meagerness, and self-deprivation? The grapevine suggests that academics earn at least N200,000 as starting salary. Well, only very few earn that much even after a decade on the job (its my tenth year, and I do not earn close to that). Anecdotal evidence shows that academics in Nigeria are some of the least paid in the world with the most senior Professor in Nigeria earning considerably less than their counterparts in many other countries. A cursory internet scan confirms this to a large extent. See Table 1 below to understand how the income at the pinnacle of an academic career in Nigeria compares with those of other countries (Figures are before tax).

Figure 1: Comparison of the estimated annual salaries of Professors in selected countries

This data is also presented graphically for you to get a quick glance of where income for Nigeria’s professors ranks.

Of course factors like GDP and cost of living affect the real earnings of academics, the table above needs no further explanation. After all deductions, a Professor with about 20 years of academic pursuit under his belt earns under N420,000 as salary (approx. $900). Nowhere is the saying:

A teacher’s reward is in heaven

truer than in Nigeria. Here, you may be subjected to delayed payments, literally declining salary, increasing taxation/deductions and several years of unpaid overwork allowances. You should be ready to survive on pure passion and/or have a supportive spouse, a trust fund or a large inheritance to keep you afloat. However, if you intend to have a semblance of comfort, then academia is not really for you. This is a secret only a few know, thanks to the inexplicably persistent misconception that academics are well-paid.

Looking at this succinct graphic from Dr. Ola Brown (Twitter: @OlaBrown), you see where most academics fall. It is entirely up to everyone to decide if they are cool with their family’s finances teetering around the poverty line (as the likely sole breadwinner), several years post-Ph.D. If however, the Federal Government meets the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the current industrial action, then new academics may be able to earn a living wage and Nigerian universities will improve considerably.

Research funding

If you intend to pursue an academic career in the sciences, you may expend about 25 % of your income purchasing research chemicals and then publishing your research findings. In 2006, P.A. Donwa reported that government support accounts for over 98% of research funding in Nigerian universities while the rest was from foreign agencies with no support from local industries. He also posited that whereas investments in R&D in many countries were as high as 6 – 10% GDP, that of Nigeria is less than 1% and in no year did research funding exceed 0.03%. This funding was also inadequate and irregular.

Things aren’t much better today as the Revised Appropriation Act 2020 shows. Recurrent expenditure appropriation for education is under N480 billion with capital allocation of under N68 billion for all levels of education. This is equivalent to a 5.2 % of the total budget, which is considerably lower than 15 % – 20 % recommended by UNESCO. A search for Nigeria here shows in engaging images that Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest numbers of researchers as a function of its population, and spends the least in Research and Development expenditure.

Demand for available research funds from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and individual institutions far outweighs supply. Unfortunately, industry involvement in funding research and activities in Nigeria is still nascent and severely limited compared to over 50 % in some countries like the USA, Korea and Japan.

It is noteworthy that Dangote Group and oil companies are contributing to funding universities in some ways. However, competition for the available funding is very stiff. Alhaji Aliko Dangote has among other philanthropic contributions donated the eponymous Dangote Business School to Bayero University Kano and another in the University of Ibadan. He also frequently calls on the private sector to go beyond just paying the mandatory 2 % education levy (used to fund TETFund) to increase funding for Nigerian tertiary education.

It is hoped that with the COVID-19 pandemic, more private entities will fund research in Nigerian Universities. Following the Pfizer deal with BioNTech worth up to $750 million to produce a vaccine against COVID-19, we all now know how expensive research is. Increased funding may help to restore us to the glory days when Nigerian researchers were also creating vaccines (e.g. the Yellow fever vaccine). It will also save us from National shame such as that induced by our begging for a few doses of the COVID-19 vaccines being currently produced.

It goes without saying, that every profession has its challenges and benefits. So, for many, being a part of academia, is an absolute joy. This is evidenced by the fact that almost nowhere else do you find such a versatile and dedicated group of people devoting their best decades to a career.  The joy of watching your students thrive, or of getting published and many other such wins, is unmatched. This is why there is a relatively low exit rate (until the recent alarming brain drain, of course) among academics. However, many others wish they had more information to help guide their decision as to if or when to become a Nigerian Academic. This post is for mainly for this latter group.

Let me mention that there are vast differences in conditions between and within institutions. So to know more about net pay, opportunities for growth, research funding, working conditions and overall job satisfaction, ask insiders. In the months since I wrote the first draft of this blogpost, I have had 3 young people tell me they were considering becoming academics and I hope this post provides them with details that will guide them in taking this crucial decision. I finally decided to publish it, and I truly hope it helps.

If this article has changed your perception of any aspect of life as an academic in Nigeria, leave me a comment below. I wish you all the very best in your career decisions.