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Many lecturers going abroad for PhD don’t come back, Sanusi bemoans brain drain as ASUU strike drags

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Sanusi Lamido

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lamido Sanusi, has bemoaned the spiralling rate of brain drain bedevilling the country amidst the current strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Sanusi made the call on Monday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York on the sidelines of a three-day Transforming Education Summit.

The former CBN governor spoke to NAN after he chaired an event tagged ‘Transforming Education through Grassroots Innovation: A Localised Teacher-Led Approach’ on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly.

He further noted that the current industrial action by the varsity workers can be resolved through dialogue.

“Government needs to recognise that teachers are human beings; we are in a country with a high level of inflation and salary don’t take teachers anywhere and teaching is a profession that needs to be valued from lowest to highest.

“Our education employees are staff of health establishment too, what we don’t know is that we have lost so many academics, many people who go abroad to do Ph.D. don’t come back.

“Many medical doctors working in Nigeria have gone abroad,’’ he said.

Read also: Nigeria’s endless lecturer strikes: insights from some essential reads

The former CBN boss, who was the 14th Emir of Kano, said brain drain had impacted negatively on the economy.

“It is a crisis because we need the doctors in Nigeria, we need the teachers in Nigeria because we have invested so much in training them.

“Both sides (ASUU and Federal Government) have a stake in sitting down and have a dialogue, making compromises, I believe it can be resolved in good faith,’’ he said.

The ASUU has been on strike since February 14, due to a cold war with the Federal Government over agreements bordering on allowances and welfare of its members.

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