The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed concern over what it described as the distorted and slow implementation of its 2025 agreement with the Federal Government, warning that unresolved welfare issues and policy disagreements could trigger fresh industrial unrest in Nigerian universities.
The union raised the concerns at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the Modibbo Adama University, Yola on 9 – 10 May.
In a press conference addressed by its president, Christopher Piwuna, a doctor of medicine, ASUU criticised delays in implementing aspects of the agreement signed with the Federal Government in December 2025, including unresolved salary arrears, withheld wages, pension issues and third-party deductions.
The union also faulted recent education policy pronouncements by the Federal Government, including plans surrounding transnational education, compulsory enrolment of academics in the Nigeria Education Repository Databank (NERD), and proposals to scrap some university courses considered “irrelevant”.
ASUU further expressed concern over the state of insecurity and worsening economic hardship in the country, warning that growing frustration among academics could threaten the fragile industrial peace currently existing in public universities.
Below is the full text of the press conference issued by the union after its NEC meeting held in Yola.
TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES (ASUU) AT THE END OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE MEETING HELD AT THE MODIBBO ADAMA UNIVERSITY, YOLA, 9TH– 10TH MAY, 2026
I. PROTOCOLS
II. PREAMBLE
Compatriots of the Press, the Academic Staff Union (ASUU) has maintained a studied silence since the signing of the December 2025 Agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and its public presentation in January 2026. This interactive session was called to present the outcome of our review of the implementation of the signed Agreement and other outstanding issues following the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the Modibbo Adama University (MAU), 9th-10th May, 2026. We equally intend to use the opportunity to share NEC’s perspective on the current state of the nation and what must be done to avert a looming national crisis of monumental proportion.
III. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2025 FGN-ASUU AGREEMENT
The momentum generated with the unveiling of the 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement on 14th January, 2026 is fast waning and may soon be lost if government’s promise to fully implement the Agreement is not kept. Our fear is predicated on government’s failure to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) expected to shield the Agreement from bureaucratic bottlenecks and guide its strategic actualisation. So far, the Federal Government agents have implemented it in a distorted and an uncoordinated manner while very few state governments have embraced and implemented it. Administrators of Federal universities are picking and choosing among what to pay among the Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances (CATA), Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) and Professorial Allowances (PA) whereas all of these should have been mainstreamed with the Consolidated Academic Staff Salary Scale (CONUASS) as monthly salary packages for professors. Some state governors as Visitors to State universities have turned their back on the Agreement at which representatives of their Governing Councils and universities actively participated.
While commending some State universities that blazed the trail, NEC strongly condemns the partial or non-implementation of the salary component of the 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement by Vice-Chancellors and call on Federal and State governments to respect the letters and spirit of the document for lasting industrial harmony on our campuses. ASUU will stop at nothing to ensure that all our members fully benefit from the modest gains of the eight-year long negotiation (2017-2025).
The gap created by non-inauguration of the IMC is equally evident in the distorted implementation of another key component of the December 2025 Agreement – the proposed National Research Council (NRC). On Wednesday, 7th April, 2026, the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, announced that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had concluded plans to establish a National Research and Innovation Development Fund (NRIDF) to which ASUU had no input whatsoever! We are surprised that the Minister’s proposal talks of $500 million without reference to the FGN-ASUU Agreement which calls for “at least 1% equivalent of GDP as source of funding research, innovation, and development.” While the union is not averse to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other stakeholders making contributions to the development of the legal and policy frameworks of the Fund, ASUU-NEC calls on the Federal Government to be properly guided by the well-thought-out objectives set out for it in the new FGN-ASUU Agreement. We shall resist any attempt to hijack and derail the research and development agenda by external agents and their local collaborators. We are at a loss as to why the Minister preferred to denominate the funding in dollars! Are they going to get another debt to fund research, or is government beholden to promises by Bretton-woods institutes to fund research in Nigeria? The sources of funding the proposed National Research council was clearly spelt in our 2025 agreement.
IV. OUTSTANDING STAFF WELFARE ISSUES
Before the conclusion of the December 2025 Agreement, members of the Government’s Renegotiating Team led by Mallam Yayale Ahmed made frantic efforts to sort out all outstanding entitlements of lecturers with their principals. This, they said, was meant to chart a new path to industrial harmony in Nigerian universities and make the new Agreement start off on a clean slate. Unfortunately, government did not see things this way or so it appeared. Many of the issues were unresolved and still remain unresolved to-date. Among these are arrears of the 25-35% salary award, arrears of promotion, remittances of third-party deductions (check-off dues, cooperative society deductions, pension contributions, etc.), salary shortfalls arising from IPPIS application, and the withheld three-and-half months’ salaries occasioned by the 2022 industrial action of ASUU.
No country can progress when the welfare issues of its academics are left unattended. Withholding lecturers’ salaries on account of “no work, no pay” is like reducing scholars to menial workers whose livelihood is calibrated in physical appearance at their worksite. What many critics do not know is that only teaching is suspended when government pushes ASUU to go on strike; research and community service continue seamlessly. And, as for the 2022 strike action, our members had sacrificed their annual leaves and personal comfort to cover the outstanding work for which they are still being punished. The affected students had since graduated and academic calenders have been regularised in all public universities for three consecutive years. Closely related to these issues is the abandonment of our retired colleagues.
In many states (for those who retired from state universities), their pension is running into years in arreas, and for those registered with different Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), Pencom has deliberately delayed the harmonization of their benefits, by withholding the share of contribution that should come from Pencom. NEC, reviewed and seriously frowned at this inhuman treatment meted to our retired colleagues. So, any further delay in addressing these lingering issues amounts to tasking the patience of ASUU members. NEC, once more, calls on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as Visitor to Federal Universities, to immediately address the vexatious delay in addressing the salary and other staff welfare issues including the pension of our colleagues to douse tensions that threaten the fragile industrial peace on our campuses.
V. OBJECTIONABLE EDUCATION POLICY PRONOUNCEMENTS
In recent months, ASUU has been troubled by some policy pronouncements in the education sector which are anything but salutary. The Minister’s reversal of the mother-tongue policy in favour of English language for instruction in early childhood education is not only retrogressive but a great loss of past gains rooted in research. Most technologically and industrially advanced countries – China, Russia, Japan, South Korea – use their indigenous languages for teaching in earliest years of schooling; recognising that children before the age of eight could master six or more languages without hampering their cognitive development. So, we ask: what research evidence informed the Minister’s conclusion that the use of local languages has “significantly weakened” learning outcomes?
Compatriots of the Press, ASUU equally finds objectionable government’s declared plan to establish a campus of the Coventry University in Nigeria under the Transnational Education (TNE) framework. ASUU has since conveyed our strong objections on this neo-colonial undertaking to make Nigerian “children being at home while still receiving a world-class UK education” to the Minister of Education. We are at loss why the government cannot make its own universities globally competitive enough to attract foreign students and scholars or retain tested local brains in place of an open embrace of the recolonisation of Nigeria’s education. From experience, much what of transpires in the partnership closets is little more than master-servant relationship, ill-digestion of foreign proposals, and gravitation towards stupendous personal benefits by Nigeria’s political class. ASUU-NEC, once more, rejects the elitist TNE proposal because it is another platform to further undermine and underdevelop the country’s tertiary education.
Another contested policy issue in ASUU’s protest letter is the Minister’s directive on compulsory enrolment of academics in the Nigeria Education Repository Databank (NERD) purportedly designed to end certificate fraud and strengthen academic records’ integrity. To the best of our knowledge, major stakeholders and staff unions like ASUU were not consulted. Such highhandedness on sensitive data issue could violate digital privacy and personal data rights of Nigerians as enshrined in the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) of 2023. Again, compulsory enrollment of academics on NERD, including the directive to Heads of Department to enforce compliance, is an unacceptable intrusion into the professional independence of academics and a violation of academic autonomy and institutional integrity.
The recent announcement that government would scrap some courses considered “irrelevant” in public universities also came to ASUU as a rude shock. The Minister reportedly claimed that mass production of graduates in social sciences and humanities is compounding the problem of unemployment and youth restfulness in the country. He argued that the scrapping of such courses was part of a comprehensive plan to align Nigeria’s education system with labour market demands, global standards, and trends in research, innovation and development. Contrary to common belief, however, every course in the university has its utilitarian values both in the personal and societal spheres.
The foundation for the cultivation of core competencies classified as 21st century or soft skills – critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, and digital literacy – are laid by many of the so-called “useless course” – philosophy, religious studies, linguistics, fine arts, etc. It is oversimplifying a complex economic management problem to attribute mass unemployment to studying “irrelevant courses”. While global attention has largely shifted towards science and technology, Nigeria can borrow a leaf from other countries where multi-talent youth development programmes, matched with productive economic outlets, have significantly addressed youth unemployment problems. ASUU-NEC rejects any attempt to whimsically scrap academic programmes in Nigerian universities and shall work with other pro-people organisations to resist it.
VI. IRREGULAR APPOINTMENTS AND OTHER QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES IN THE UNIVERSITIES
Over the years, ASUU has had to wage many battles back on the campuses because of some unhealthy practices by university administrators and governing councils. We fought against irregular appointments, misappropriation of funds, disrespect for rules and many more in various universities to no avail. Perhaps on a much larger scale Vice-Chancellors in recent years introduced extraneous positions like “Professor of Practice” and “Diaspora Professors”, which are unknown to their University Senates and Governing Councils, to please their cronies and benefactors. In the process, people with doubtful academic credentials find their way into the university system and some even rise to become vice-chancellors. Our union had equally challenged vice-chancellors for lack of transparency and accountability in handling university finances and took on pro-chancellors who overreached their mandates by illegally occupying university premises and abusing their privileged position.
The increasing incidence of maladministration of Nigerian universities must be arrested because of its debilitating effects for the academic environment respected for probity, transparency and accountability. Credibility is the currency for effective leadership and governance of a university. A discredited Vice-Chancellor or Chairman of Council is a liability to the university community and appointing authorities in Nigeria must ensure that questionable characters have no place in our universities.
VII. ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER A CAMPUS OF FUT, MINNA
NEC notes with regrets the crisis recently generated by the Niger State government’s attempt to forcefully take over the Bosso campus of the Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna on the ground that it was on “lease” to the university over forty years ago. We are alarmed that a State government could turn round several years later to reclaim a landed property released for the take-off of the institution after the Federal Government had invested humongous resources to construct several lecture theatres, classrooms, offices, laboratories and other structures and facilities which still serve a significant section of the university population and the Minna community. It is a bad precedent in university education which could trigger a chain of actions in other states and impair collaborative efforts between Federal and State governments in siting new developmental projects including universities. ASUU strongly opposes this unusual move by the Niger State government and calls on the Minister of Education not to sacrifice the interest of the FUT Minna on the alter of partisan politics.
VIII. STATE OF THE NATION
Recent developments in our country, Nigeria, give serious cause for concern about our collective survival and progress. From politics to economy, from social welfare to security, the hope of things getting any better looks grimmer and grimmer by passing each day. As the country inches towards the 2027 general elections, the political atmosphere has become increasingly charged. Politicians are dagger-drawn and the pervasive do-or-die politics hangs gloomily like the Sword of Damocles over the nation. In all of this, consideration for the lives and livelihoods of the ordinary citizens takes the back seat. Innocent citizens are lured to political camps and campaigns at which they have no say with branded bags of rice that could barely feed a family of five for more than one week! What politicians call welfare packages, empowerment projects and cash transfers are, in reality, avenues and platforms for advancing their political penetration for electoral gains and perpetuation of politics of avarice and self-enrichment.
Many commentators have, justifiably so, questioned the country’s economic development model that showcases macro gains that do not translate to affordable food, decent shelter for the poor, and access to social services such as education, health, transportation and electricity. A few years back, Nigeria was ingloriously tagged the poverty capital of the world. The situation has since become worse; with over 62% or about 133 million Nigerians currently living in multidimensional poverty. The opacity in managing the oil-dependent economy, driven by a rent-seeking ideology, has worsened unemployment and underemployment, aggravated inflation, and hamstrung impactful human capital development efforts including education and health. It is little surprise then that labour leaders are angling for a living wage less than two years into the last minimum wage review.
The country’s socio-political and economic woes are daily compounded by the hydra-headed insecurity problem. Across the North, the resurgence of Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorist activities, the escalation of banditry, and the intractable farmers-herders’ conflicts have led to the destruction and desertion of several communities, and the killing and kidnapping of thousands of helpless and hapless others. The unknown gunmen phenomenon in South-East has equally turned the region to a landscape of terror. The South-West and South-South are also not totally immune to the widespread experiences of armed banditry and killing and kidnapping for ransom. All of this amounts to the told and retold stories of the worsening conditions of Nigerians whose lives and livelihoods depend on daily incomes from farming, fishing, cottage industry and other micro and small-scale economic activities.
Governments at the Federal, State and Council levels must rise to the challenge of their constitutional responsibilities of protecting the lives and property of the Nigerian people. The frequent disruptions caused by insecurity across our political, economic, and educational lives must be arrested to take back our country.
IX. CONCLUSION
ASUU leaders at the MAU-NEC meeting frowned seriously at the distorted/non-implementation of the December 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement by the Federal and State governments. They equally noted with concern governments’ reluctance to amicably resolve the lingering issues of the withheld three-and-half months’ salaries, promotion arrears, shortfalls in salaries arising from the use of the IPPIS platform, unremitted third-party deductions, and arrears of 25-35% wage award. The increasing frustration occasioned by the seeming government’s disinterestedness in the welfare of Nigerian academics is brewing a pent-up anger which could erupt into a new wave of industrial unrest if not addressed.
The union appeals to all genuine patriots, well-meaning Nigerians and lovers of Nigeria to prevail on State and Federal governments to fully implement the new Agreement and resolve other outstanding issues in the interest of parents, students and the nation at large. Our union’s doors remain open for working with government to realise all our demands. At the same time, NEC directs that an emergency of ASUU be called in the next few weeks to review the situation and take appropriate action as may be necessary.
Thank you for listening.
Christopher Piwuna
ASUU President
11th May, 2026
