By Sirajo Yusuf
In recent times, Nigerians have watched the federal government repeatedly approve special allowances and concessions for academic staff in public universities.
While no reasonable person disputes the importance of lecturers or the need to motivate them, a fundamental question continues to be ignored: do academic staff operate in a vacuum? Nigeria’s universities are complex ecosystems.
Teaching and research may be the most visible outputs, but they rest on an extensive foundation built and sustained by non-academic staff. From admissions to examinations, payroll to procurement, laboratories to libraries, ICT platforms to security, Non-academic staff are the invisible engine room of the university system.
Without them, universities would grind to a halt—often faster than many care to admit. Yet, policy decisions and government actions suggest a troubling assumption: that academic staff are the “real” university workers, while non-academic staff are peripheral, expendable, or undeserving of comparable recognition.
This assumption is not only wrong; it is unjust. Across Nigerian universities, thousands of non-academic staff possess first degrees,Master’s degrees, PhDs, and professional certifications such as ICAN, ANAN, COREN, CIPM, CIBN, NIM, and many others.
These are not casual workers. They are trained professionals who manage finances running into billions, safeguard academic records, maintain laboratories, run digital systems, and ensure that institutions meet accreditation and regulatory standards. Ironically, many of these responsibilities are legally sensitive and technically demanding.
A single error by a bursary officer, admissions officer, or exams and records unit can cripple a university’s credibility. Yet, while qualifications are celebrated and monetized for academics, similar credentials among non-academic staff are often ignored, poorly rewarded, or capped by rigid career ceilings.
The result is a quiet but persistent form of structural discrimination. The frequent justification for this imbalance is that academic unions—particularly ASUU—are more vocal, more militant, and better organized. This may be true, but it exposes a deeper flaw in governance.
A responsible government should not run a reward system based on who shouts the loudest or shuts down campuses the longest. Public policy should be anchored on fairness, functionality, and institutional reality. Universities do not collapse only when lectures stop.
They also collapse when salaries are unpaid, results are not processed, accreditation documents are missing, ICT systems fail, or laboratories become unusable. These failures fall squarely within the domain of non-academic labour. So why does the system continue to marginalize them? Part of the problem lies within non-academic unions themselves.
Fragmentation across multiple unions, weak coordination, reactive strategies, and poor public communication have reduced their bargaining power. Too often, struggles are framed narrowly as welfare issues rather than as institutional justice and national education concerns.
In some cases, intimidation, compromise, or leadership capture further weakening collective resolve. However, union weaknesses alone can not excuse systemic injustice.
The deeper issue is a long-standing hierarchical mindset inherited from colonial administrative models—one that elevates “intellectual labour” while diminishing administrative, technical, and professional labour.
This mindset is outdated and incompatible with modern university systems, where knowledge production is collaborative and multidisciplinary. If this imbalance continues unchecked, it will further demoralize a critical segment of the university workforce, deepen internal resentment, and ultimately undermine efficiency.
A university divided against itself can not compete globally, no matter how well-paid its lecturers are. What is needed now is not rivalry between academic and non-academic staff, but equity-driven reform. Allowances and incentives should reflect contribution, responsibility, and qualifications—not job titles alone. Professional credentials must be monetized across the board.
Non-academic unions must also rethink their strategies, unify their voices, and engage the public more effectively, not merely as workers demanding pay but as stakeholders defending the integrity of higher education. Above all, the government must stop pretending that universities run on chalk and lecture notes alone.
They run on systems, people, and interdependent labour. Until this truth is acknowledged and reflected in policy, the Nigerian university will remain a place where some workers are celebrated loudly, while others—equally essential—remain unseen, unheard, and unfairly treated.
And no system built on such imbalance can claim to be just, sustainable, or truly progressive.
Grandmaster Sirajo Yusuf, Sports centre, Federal University Lokoja, Kogi state.
