THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to resume a nationwide strike, accusing the Federal Government and several state governments of failing to fully implement the December 2025 agreement reached with the union.
ASUU President, Christopher Piwuna, disclosed the union’s position in Abuja on Friday after an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC).
“Unless immediate and concrete steps are taken to fully and comprehensively address issues bordering on the welfare and well-being of Nigerian academics, ASUU-NEC will not accept any blame,”Piwuna said.
The ICIR reports that ASUU’s latest threat of nationwide industrial action is coming barely six weeks after President Bola Tinubu celebrated the absence of an ASUU strike as an achievement.
Tinubu on July 28, said that the fact that Nigerian universities had not experienced an ASUU strike since he became president was an answered prayer.
He made the statement while speaking about developments in the education sector and the relative industrial stability in universities.
However, in June 2024, ASUU threatened a nationwide industrial action over unpaid salaries and other unresolved issues, amid demands for payment of withheld salaries arising from the 2022 strike and other outstanding obligations.
There were also further threats in 2025, including pressure over the delayed renegotiated agreement, as the Federal Government issued a statement in October 2025 urging ASUU to shelve a threatened strike and return to dialogue.
The latest threat comes less than nine months after the Federal Government and ASUU concluded the renegotiated 2025 agreement on December 23, 2025.
The agreement followed prolonged negotiations and was designed to resolve the issues that had remained outstanding since the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement and it was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026, with a review after three years.
ASUU is now warning that an agreement on paper will not prevent another strike unless its financial and governance provisions are implemented.
Piwuna said on Friday that the December 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement, reached after years of negotiations, had been poorly implemented, warning that the union could direct its members to withdraw their services if the outstanding issues were not resolved.
“We note with regrets that nothing has changed about the three-and-half months’ salaries left out of the seven-and-half months withheld by the Buhari Government since we last addressed the public,” he said.
He warned that ASUU could call its members out on a nationwide strike action within the shortest time possible if the government failed to make satisfactory progress.
“ASUU-NEC is fully prepared to call out its members if nothing concrete is done to address this lingering problem without further delay,” Piwuna said.
He noted that three-and-a-half months out of the seven-and-a-half months’ salaries withheld during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari remained unpaid, despite the payment of four months approved by Tinubu.
He explained that the unpaid balance had subjected affected academics to severe financial and psychological pressure at a time when inflation and the rising cost of living had substantially eroded the value of their earnings.
Beyond salary arrears, Piwuna accused authorities of failing to remit billions of naira deducted from lecturers’ salaries for pensions, cooperative societies and ASUU check-off dues.
The union said the alleged non-remittance had created another layer of financial uncertainty for academics, who were being paid salaries from which deductions were made without receiving the corresponding benefits.
Piwuna said the union remained willing to negotiate with both federal and state authorities but insisted that dialogue must produce tangible results.
He said ASUU would resort to industrial action if the government failed to resolve the matter, noting that several state governments had also failed to adequately implement the 2025 agreement.
“ASUU cannot guarantee uninterrupted academic calendar at the expense of the existential needs of our members,” Piwuna said.
The union leader commended Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, and other governors it said were implementing the agreement, while urging states that had yet to comply to act before the disagreement escalates.
He criticised Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke over his decision to extend the tenure of Osun State University Vice-Chancellor, Clement Adebooye, a professor, by two years.
Adeleke announced the extension on August 31 while inaugurating a reconstituted governing council, saying the decision was aimed at ensuring continuity and preventing a leadership vacuum. The university has defended the decision as being in the institution’s interest.
ASUU, however, considers the extension contrary to the university’s governing law and says it raises questions about university autonomy and governance.
ASUU’s position places the UNIOSUN controversy within its broader argument that government interference in university governance can undermine institutional autonomy, which was one of the issues addressed in the 2025 agreement.
Piwuna also backed the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Joe Ajaero, in demanding an immediate review of the national minimum wage amid worsening economic hardship.
Ajaero had announced in July that the NLC was preparing a nationwide campaign for a review of the minimum wage, citing rising inflation and the deteriorating purchasing power of Nigerian workers and pensioners.
He called on students, parents, labour leaders, the media and other stakeholders to intervene before the dispute develops into another prolonged shutdown of public universities.
The ICIR reports that ASUU commenced its major nationwide strike on February 14, 2022, during Buhari’s administration, a major dispute between the union and government that brought Nigeria’s public university system to a standstill for eight months.
The Federal Government invoked the “No Work, No Pay” principle during the strike but the strike was suspended in October 2022, following a renegotiation process that stretched back to the review of the 2009 agreement.
The National Industrial Court had earlier ruled that the government was legally permitted to withhold the salaries of ASUU members who participated in the 2022 strike under Section 43(1)(a) of the Trade Disputes Act.
But ASUU has continued to demand payment of the balance, arguing that lecturers eventually returned to work and fulfilled their obligations.
In October 2023, Tinubu granted a partial waiver and approved the release of four months of the withheld salaries.
The parties reached the new agreement on December 23, 2025, bringing to an end negotiation that had been ongoing for years over the review of the 2009 agreement which was scheduled to take effect from January 1, 2026.
The Federal Government described the agreement as a landmark deal designed to restore stability to the university system.
Among its provisions was a 40 per cent upward review of the emoluments of university academic staff, implemented through the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance.
The agreement also introduced a professorial cadre allowance and revised several existing academic allowances.
The Federal Government said the measures were intended to improve lecturers’ welfare, strengthen research and teaching, and reduce the incentive for academics to leave Nigeria.
In February, the government announced that implementation of the 40 per cent salary-related component had commenced and said the increase was effective from January 1, 2026.
ASUU’s latest complaint, however, suggests that implementation has been uneven, particularly across state-owned universities.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.