Of President Bola Tinubu, Comrade Staff Of Nigerian Universities and Nigerian Students: Promises Made and Kept As P-BAT Succeeds Where Other Leaders Met Restraints by Prof Yemi Oke SAN
*Background:*
On Tuesday evening of June 24, 2025, I received a payment alert for the long-fought Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) which had been owed to university teachers for close to two decades. As a University Professor, a six-digit payment (slightly above a million in Nigerian currency) should ordinarily not be significant. The real issue here is not the quantum or the sum, but the thoughtfulness and the fact that President Bola Tinubu, who did not owe but inherited the debt made a promise to pay. Let Nigerians know that the promise has been kept, most conscionably, by the Nigerian President.
It takes a great, courageous leader to consciously take steps to right some institutional wrongs, not only in the Nigerian economy, politics and academics, but in every aspect of our national life!
First, billions of US dollars owed by past administrations were verified and the CBN under P-BAT began paying off the debt. IMF debt was paid off. Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) of Nigerian Universities has now been paid off.
Our “Greatest Nigerian Students” in tertiary institutions have been accessing billions of Naira in student loans with ease to the emotional reliefs and physiological pleasure of their proud parents.
President Bola Tinubu did not create all the problems of Nigeria as a country. However, one factor that distinguishes him from other leaders is that President Bola Tinubu is “unusually” determined and ready to face those challenges head-on, and solve them. That is the hallmark of a truly great leader.
Prior to the Tinubu era, Nigerian Universities have had the benefit of their colleagues as Vice-President and Ministers of Education, yet the humongous debts of EAA remained unpaid and unattended to until President Bola Tinubu deemed it fit and decent enough to pay-off the embarrassing debt.
Credit must be given in deserving situations. Yoruba adage says: *yin’ni, yin’ni, ki eni o see’mii* (If you appreciate a favour done to you, you’re only requesting for more favours).
The question is: are we happy as academic staff with the payment of EAA? The answer is YES. Could we have been happier? The answer is YES, only if President Tinubu steps-up his current favorable dispositions to the Nigerian Universities. It is akin to a heinous crime on the part of past administrations that salaries of University staff were last reviewed in 2009!
It will be a total victory and (if you so prefer) *“mind-capturing”* for Nigerian Universities and our teeming staff and students if President Bola Tinubu “finishes” the good work by immediately approving enhanced, decent packages for Nigerian Universities to make lecturers happier just as students and their parents are smiling to banks for student loan bonanzas.
Nigerian university lecturers are *“direct subsidies”* that had been mindlessly built into university education in Nigeria by past administrations.
*No Professor in Nigerian university earns $500 USD in a month!* Yet, we continue to sacrifice to train the manpower and future leaders of Nigeria.
*Imagine a poorly trained medical or nursing student and the risk on patients in our hospitals and health institutions? Imagine a poorly trained pilot flying aircrafts in which you are boarded! Imagine a poorly trained Engineer constructing flyovers and bridges on which you ply!*
Let us pause to image Nigerian university lecturers who have lost their lives in an attempt to administer elections in Nigeria as returning officers for Presidential, Governorship, National or State Assembly elections. How about students trained by Nigerian university teachers who are in the NYSC and deployed as pooling officers at elections. That’s just (only) about contributions to electoral processes in our dear country.
*By every standards, President Bola Tinubu has already won the hearts of millions of Nigerian students, their parents and University staff with the combined effects of the payment of the Earned Academic Allowances and Student Loan scheme*. *All that needs to be done is for P-BAT to complete the job of “capturing of the minds” of these crucial constituencies ahead of the 2027 general elections.*
For those who love to read “politics” into every steps or actions, this will be a fair and good politics if Nigerian University teachers have a reviewed and enhanced salary since 2009 under President Bola Tinubu. *As a constituency, we know what to do to “payback” as university staff, and through our greatest Nigerian students and their proud parents with our votes and our continued service to humanity and our fatherland, NIGERIA.*
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
*This “GIANT” called Nigeria shall rise and never to fall again!!!*
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*PROF. YEMI OKE, SAN, PhD, FCArb, FCIT*
Faculty of Law
University of Lagos, Nigeria
June 26, 2025
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