Nigeria’s public universities could face another nationwide strike as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) warns that unresolved salary, welfare and agreement implementation issues are pushing lecturers towards renewed industrial action.
The warning followed an emergency meeting of ASUU’s National Executive Council (NEC) held at the union’s National Secretariat at the University of Abuja on September 5, 2026. The union said several outstanding issues remain unresolved despite previous engagements with the Federal Government.
At the centre of the dispute is what ASUU described as the non- or haphazard implementation of the December 2025 FGN-ASUU agreement, alongside three-and-a-half months of withheld salaries from the previous administration. The union also raised concerns over unremitted pension, cooperative and other third-party deductions, as well as university autonomy.
ASUU President, Christopher Piwuna, warned that the union would not accept responsibility for any disruption to academic activities if the government fails to act quickly. He said lecturers continue to face uncertainty over the payment of their salaries and that the situation was creating growing industrial tension across universities.
The union acknowledged that President Bola Tinubu’s administration had paid four months out of the seven-and-a-half months of salaries withheld during the Buhari administration. However, ASUU said three-and-a-half months remained unpaid and argued that the value of the outstanding income had declined by more than 50 per cent since 2022.
ASUU also pointed to billions of naira in deductions from lecturers’ salaries that it said had not been properly remitted. These include pension contributions, cooperative society deductions and union check-off dues. The union warned that limited progress on the issue could trigger further industrial action.
The warning comes despite recent steps by the Federal Government to implement parts of the 2025 agreement. On September 9, the government announced the release of funds for the full payment of the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance to academic staff in federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education for January to August 2026.
However, ASUU said the payment did not resolve the wider dispute. The union noted that several state university branches were already moving towards strike action, while chapters at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, and Plateau State University had declared indefinite strikes over unresolved demands. Sule Lamido University ASUU also announced a two-week warning strike from September 15 over outstanding issues with the Jigawa State Government.
ASUU stressed that it has not declared a fresh nationwide strike yet, but warned that its suspended industrial action could be activated if satisfactory progress is not made. The union called on the Federal and State Governments to urgently address the outstanding issues and urged students, parents, labour leaders and other Nigerians to intervene before the dispute escalates.
The union said it remains willing to negotiate but insisted that lecturers’ welfare cannot be separated from the stability of Nigeria’s public university system. It warned that continued delays could put the academic calendar at risk and deepen the crisis facing the country’s universities.
