University lecturers across Nigeria may be heading back to the picket lines as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) accused the federal and state governments of failing to honour key parts of a deal signed less than a year ago.
After an emergency National Executive Council meeting at the University of Abuja in the early hours of Friday, ASUU said it could resume its suspended nationwide strike “without any further notice” if urgent action is not taken.
The union listed three unresolved issues at the centre of the dispute: the incomplete implementation of the December 2025 agreement, the outstanding 3.5 months of withheld salaries, and billions of naira in unremitted deductions from lecturers’ pay.
“Unless immediate and concrete steps are taken to FULLY and COMPREHENSIVELY address issues bordering the welfare and well-being of Nigerian academics, ASUU-NEC will not accept any blame for calling out its members on a nationwide strike action within the shortest time possible,” the union warned in a statement signed by its President, Christopher Piwuna.
According to ASUU, the December 2025 agreement came after “more than eight years of negotiations and struggles,” but implementation has been slow and inconsistent.
The union acknowledged some progress. It commended Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, and the governments of Bauchi, Ekiti, Ogun, Benue, Yobe, Adamawa, Kebbi, Katsina and Borno “for commencing implementation of the agreement.”
It also noted that Kano, Edo, Plateau, Taraba, Gombe and Bayelsa “had also pledged to commence implementation in September or October,” while warning other states to act before their universities were plunged into an “industrial crisis of monumental proportion.”
On the federal side, ASUU said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration had paid four months of the withheld salaries.
“We have consistently acknowledged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for paying four (4) out of the withheld salaries. However, leaving out the unpaid balance does not give his government the full credit of a labour-friendly administration,” it said.
Beyond salaries, ASUU alleged that pension contributions, cooperative deductions and union check-off dues “running into billions of naira had remained unremitted for several months.”
The union said the combination of unpaid wages and unremitted deductions was eroding trust and threatening stability on campuses.
“In no mistaken terms, ASUU posits that the non- or haphazard implementation of the 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement is a recipe for” further industrial action.
