A Nigerian-born Canadian professor, Pius Adesanmi compares the earnings of a professor in Canada where he works and that of his Nigerian counterpart. He match both with what politicians in both countries earns for comparative analysis and its implication on educational outcome and asked what Nigeria’s priority is.
Pius wrote:
A new Canada150 Professorship is worth about $350k/year. Canada poached many of the inaugural recipients from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Princeton and Oxford.
Many of you rejoiced with us at the Institute of African Studies for a successful bid to host one of the Chairs but you missed this little detail: with $350 thousand per annum, Canada has decided to attract the best brains in the world to her Universities and the US Ivy League is taking a hit because they have no response yet to that Chair. Canada will be announcing about 20 Chairs per year for the next 7 years and I wager they will keep draining the US Ivy League and Oxford/Cambridge in the UK.
Nigeria gives such funds to Senators, Governors, and other worthless political actors for wardrobe, clubbing, womanizing, security votes, and frivolous foreign trips.
A Nigerian Senator is a waste of human space. Yet, at a total package of $540k/year, he is dangerously close to making twice the package of a Canada 150 Chair.
Canada – invest in education and knowledge.
Nigeria – invest in the pocket of useless politicians. Try to make the money you spend on the conspicuous consumption of politicians back by increasing school fees indiscriminately and sending your children out of school.
Dino Melaye’s annual partying bill in various hotel rooms in Nigeria and across the world, splashed across social media, is dangerously close to the cost of maintaining a Canada 150 Chair.
Nigeria, let that sink in.
Priorities…
And the big question truly is, what is our priority as a nation?
