 Many Nigerian universities are currently dealing with a brain drain and as a result there is loss of human capital, skills, shortages and gaps in a critical sector of the economy. A number of factors such as poor salary, uncondusive working environment, poor staff development, inadequate infrastructural facilities, strike actions, insecurity and inadequate funding seem to be the cause. With many lecturers in the Nigerian universities leaving the nation to pursue professions overseas as the federal government struggles to find a lasting solution to the ongoing crisis in the education sector. Joining me to discuss this are Dr. Li Sumonu Ph.D., National President, Congress of University Academics Konwa and Professor Samayla Mandi, Dean School of Postgraduate Studies, National Opu University of Nigeria. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome this evening to class politics. I must say that the two of you leaving Nigeria just to get the introduction very clear, I was the former dean of the School of Postgraduate Studies National Opu University of Nigeria. Thank you very much for the correction. We should appreciate that. At least we are also fortunate to know that you have attained that level of leadership within the university system and you are quite competent to speak to the issue at hand. Let me then start with you then, Professor Samayla Mandi. As somebody who has attained leadership in the academic environment especially in an ivory tower, what is your take about the now well-reported brain drain in our universities? What is your general opinion about that? Well, let me say that even though the network wasn't other clear, but I want to believe that you are not talking about what was my own take about the situation based on the thing we are not talking about today. There is no doubt about it that the brain drain is a major challenge in our educational development in Nigeria and as a matter of fact is a global issue. And so the most important thing is that we have to look at it, there are factors responsible to these many and to this issue there are factors responsible. And so what are these factors that are there, we need to understand that one there is this search for opportunities and then aside from that one we have this own conducive atmosphere. And then poor salary conditions aside from that and then we have issues that has to do with strikes. Because in the academic setting because when we are talking about this brain drain issue because I need to let us clear that yes it is a phenomenon that is now ravaging various parts of the world. And which in our own lexicon in Nigeria, we call it the Jack Ma syndrome. And because it is the Jack Ma syndrome that we would ask what we are now facing clearly, we need to understand that every individual has his own need. And because you have your own needs and whatever also you have to understand factors are responsible to you wanting to now meet up with your need. Then looking at it educationally, we have to understand that there are some factor responsible to that. In this case, we have this idea of unstable academic calendar. And we have this issue that has to do with lack of academic research for support development because every academic if there is anything that makes an academic thriving is his research competence and research support. And so a situation whereby there is no support for research, so that's why we're having that as a major challenge in our country. And then the other issue is the need to have this kind of engagement with the industry because we need to understand that there are some things that are now clear which are very, very critical. And we have to try as much as we can to see how we can now resolve that. I talk about those factors now. Before we go deep into your end, I think it's about time I invited Dr. Sumonu, especially in your position as a trade union leader of a sort in the academic environment. And I was very glad this morning when we were trying to invite you that you first took permission to work your organs. You said you wanted to check with your organs if you should come on a set like this. And it then speaks to the fact that you are a man who tries to garner the opinions of those that you lead. But from your position as the leader of Konwa, what is your take on this so-called unfortunate phenomenon of rendering in academia? Thank you very much once again. I'll start by appreciating you for extending this invitation to us. Secondly, I think the bigger part of the job has actually been done starting kicking off by Prof. Prasomande over there. I will only try to look at it from albeit a slightly different perspective or try to coalesce the matter into two add-ins. The first is actually the problem, the general problem of the country. Prof. has spoken about the generic nature of the challenge. It's not affecting the academics alone, it's a general thing and it's a global thing. The other perspective is to look at it generally and pin it down to the problem of funding in our tertiary institutions. In the universities in particular. And you know, sometimes in the past, in this country, when universities first started in this country, in the 40s, up till around 1975, just to summarize, we will see that the influx of expatriates, Britons, Indians, Ghanians, may be due to some other problems with respect to Ghanians. From the coming world, from the English-speaking world. Thank you sir. These people, you find them in our academia and contributing their quota to develop and even find students. The issue of brain drain started showing its head and it actually coincided with when the funding began to reduce in this country. And that is post-75. The first effect we started saying in the early 80s. And it is about funding. Funding has to do with good remuneration. Funding has to do with conducive environment. Funding has to do with the facilities with which researchers will work. That is the joy of researchers. So, as far as we are concerned, the major problem responsible for the exodus of Nigerian academics is the reduction in the funding of the universities. And quickly before I conclude on this point, is for our thinking that the government, the funding we get from the government is unpredictable, is insufficient, is epileptic if there is anything like that. So, with that, and you put your mind to that, you expect that to sustain the university no consistency, inconsistent, insufficient, then you can't embark on any meaningful research. And if you take this, extend this to all facets of the life in the university, then you have this all sorts of things, coupled with unpredictability in our academic sessions, in our academic calendar due to strikes. So, all these put together contributes to the brain drain. Let me quickly take it to Prof. Prof, I have worked with you before in my capacity as an entrepreneur and shaking academia. And I know that some people like you in the academic environment are not only sinking your heads into researches and pedagogy or teaching alone. There are strategies that some people like you tend to effect, to unshake the street and shaking the town and the ground, working together to create value, especially where it gives experience, experiential empowerment to your students. Prof, why are so many people in the academia not replicating that kind of strategy in their areas of specialization? I am just thinking a lot because I know you and I know that it is not quite fashionable in most of my teaching institutions for such things to be done. Prof, are you there? Okay, we may have lost, is that the, is that this is ending. Dr. Sumono, would you, would you perhaps want to give that question ago? Why is it that we have this much brain power? People who are specialists theoretically in subjects and disciplines are yet those areas of, those areas of specializations are areas that could ordinarily get good market currency in a market of 200 million plus people. And yet many in academia just want to be blaming grammar at us and we don't see the effect of all their knowledge. Thank you so much. I'm so happy with that perspective. Honestly, the perspective we are trying to let our colleagues, esteemed colleagues know these days. Of course there are limiting, there are limiting factors to it. But ideally there should be a handshake between the town and the gown. In one of our engagements, public engagement, we have coined this to be what is called institutional entrepreneurship. You look at aspect of your research that is marketable. There is no aspect of research that is not marketable. There is no aspect of how you put it across to people. Why said so is not perfect. The universities are an environment where problems, societal problems are solved. So in different disciplines you are thinking, you are researching, you are solving societal problems in that perspective in those areas. And this is the thinking we want all our colleagues to start imbibing. And we use this medium to call on the government also to appreciate the academia. I've said this time and time again. One is looking like sounding like a broken record. Any individual academic inclusive can only think globally. You still need to act locally. You can import solutions to problems outside of our shores. And you want to replicate that and you think that will solve our problems. There are peculiarities. And our people, our researchers, our universities, university academics are thinking about our peculiarities and solutions to them. So you have our political elites. They want to have retreats. They want to have some lectures with regards to legislation. They want to have lectures with regards to how to carry out some things in the ministries. And you see them starting out of the country. But when you're in a spotless, sometimes even if they don't talk about it, they're in a spotless too. So our problems, we have our peculiarities. Our problems are peculiar to us. Let me see if Prof is back. Is Prof back? Yes, I'm back. I'm back. Sorry for that. Prof, not a fault. Prof, I wouldn't know if you had my question. I said I've had the privilege as an entrepreneur, the town to have engaged a department that you let for a kind of mutual entrepreneurial engagement that even your students benefited from experientially. And it was a real win. We also learned from the observation and the research that your department had carried out. I wonder, and I'm not saying this to patronize you. I wonder why many of your colleagues are not to represent, are not replicating that strategy with a view to even making themselves relevant and amassing the inherent enormous opportunities in this market of 200 million people plus. Thank you, Mr. Bola for your comment and everything. Let me say that all that you said were able to do that because of the situation at that time. Now I'm so happy with what Dr. Samonu mentioned. You need to understand there are so many challenges today and some of these challenges whether you like it or not each of these sectors are having a challenge to do with it. But what you are talking about directly is this idea that has to do with what we are not talking about the triple helix model. The triple helix model is not a model whereby you have an interaction between the government, the academia, the industry and the society. As a matter of fact we can even talk about quadruple helix model not only the triple helix model where we talk about having an interaction between the academia and the industry so what we did that time because we realized very well on some of the things that we did because our own kind of education is ensuring the real world of work. The real world of work not just the idea of coming up to say that I'm applying for job but rather the real world of work of you creating opportunities so that at the end of the day you become somebody who now end up becoming an entrepreneur. Now the challenge we have today is that these disciplines are now being faced with a lot of challenges. Prof and whether we like it or not Prof I'm really very sorry the dictatorship of time is catching up with us I'm really very sorry I must say thank you to your two brilliant minds Prof Samaila Mande of the Open University of Nigeria and Dr. Lee Sumonu Ph.D. the leader I don't know the title of the user Kamura I don't know the title of the user Kamura but thank you national president thank you gentlemen for being part of this show this evening and thank you very much for having me thank you very much for having me and it's nice having us engaged with you people and we hope that we'll have a better time for our national department and that's it on the show tonight I am Bola Hoba and have a good night