This study investigated how leadership, remuneration, organizational justice, and procedural justice influence academic‐staff retention in Adamawa State’s public universities over the period 2011–2021. The population comprised 1,336 tenure‐track academics at Modibbo Adama University (1,084) and Adamawa State University (252), from which a stratified combination of simple‐random and purposive sampling yielded 500 distributed questionnaires and 408 valid responses. Data were collected via an eight‐item questionnaire on organizational and procedural justice and a seven‐item questionnaire on remuneration perceptions, using a 5‐point Likert scale with a 3.00 mean benchmark. Findings reveal pervasive dissatisfaction with remuneration: 69.6% disagreed that their salary met needs, and across all seven items adequacy, satisfaction, attractiveness of allowances, competitiveness, fairness, and bonus provision the overall mean was 2.34 (SDs 1.17 1.27), indicating that compensation is neither adequate nor competitive enough to retain staff. In contrast, perceptions of procedural justice at the departmental level were largely positive: although over half felt reward systems did not fairly reflect training or job value (means 2.70 and 2.86), they reported strong working relationships with heads of department (mean 3.43), clear decision explanations (mean 3.60), respectful treatment (mean 3.46), and adequate justification for decisions (mean 3.49). The overall procedural‐justice mean of 3.13 (SDs 1.01–1.24) suggests that day‐to‐day fairness in communication and decision processes may bolster retention despite weaknesses in formal reward structures. In conclusion, while procedural fairness at the departmental level supports staff commitment, insufficient and non competitive remuneration remains a critical barrier to retaining academic staff in Adamawa State’s public universities.