UNIBEN to hire about 500 more staff after 10-year recruitment freeze
- UNIBEN Vice-Chancellor Prof. Edoba Omoregie says the university will recruit about 500 workers this year, matching last year's figure.
- He said no recruitment happened at the university between 2015 and last year, cutting staff strength from about 8,000 to about 5,000.
- Omoregie said past administrations wrongly believed government had banned employment, when replacement of departing staff was allowed.
The University of Benin (UNIBEN) plans to employ about 500 new workers this year, covering both academic and non-academic positions, its Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Edoba Omoregie, has said.
Omoregie said the school carried out a similar exercise last year, when about 500 people were taken on after a recruitment freeze that lasted a decade.
He spoke about the plan in an interview with Vanguard, and Punch also reported his comments.
For an ordinary Nigerian, the news matters for jobs: the university says it is filling hundreds of vacancies that have sat empty for years, and it says more spaces are still opening.
Why the freeze lasted so long
According to the VC, the last major employment exercise on campus before his administration was in 2015. He said staff strength fell from about 8,000 to about 5,000 by the time he took office.
Omoregie said successive administrations believed the government had placed an embargo on employment, so they did not replace workers who retired, resigned, were dismissed or moved elsewhere.
He said that was a misreading of the policy. In his account, the government only restricted new appointments in some universities but allowed institutions to replace staff who left, a process known as replacement by attrition.
"That was what they didn't do for 10 years," he said.
He said the gap forced the university to move non-academic staff into academic roles and to hire adjuncts. "You don't run a university like that," he said.
What happens next
Omoregie said calculating only those due to retire this year gave over 400 spaces. The university has approached the appropriate approving body to allow those who are leaving, and those who have already left, to be replaced.
He said the school hopes to employ roughly the same number as last year, in both the academic and non-academic sections.
Punch reported that the university launched a ₦100 billion Trust Development Fund in July 2026 to improve infrastructure, teaching and research. The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, attended the launch and said the fund fits the Federal Ministry of Education's renewal plan for the sector.
