The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has alleged distortions in the implementation of the 2025 FGN–ASUU Agreement unveiled on January 14, 2026, urging President Bola Tinubu to address what it described as the “vexatious delay” in resolving its concerns. This was disclosed in a statement made available to journalists……
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has alleged distortions in the implementation of the 2025 FGN–ASUU Agreement unveiled on January 14, 2026, urging President Bola Tinubu to address what it described as the “vexatious delay” in resolving its concerns.
This was disclosed in a statement made available to journalists during a National Executive Committee press conference held at the Modibbo Adama University, in Yola, Adamawa State, on 9TH to 10TH May.
According to the statement, the association expressed that so far, the Federal Government have implemented the signed 2025 FGN–ASUU Agreement in a “distorted and uncoordinated manner.”
The association stated that despite the irregularities, it has maintained a studied silence since the signing of the December 2025 Agreement with the Federal Government and its public presentation in January 2026.
According to the statement, the session was called to present the outcome of their 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).
ASUU said, “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 the government’s promise to fully implement the Agreement is not kept.
“Our fear is predicated on the 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 uncoordinated manner, while very few state governments have embraced and implemented it.”
The association further alleged that the administrators of Federal universities are picking and choosing what to pay among the Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances (CATA), Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) and Professorial Allowances (PA), noting that the payments should have been mainstreamed with the Consolidated Academic Staff Salary Scale (CONUASS) as monthly salary packages for professors.
ASUU said, “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 urges the Federal and State governments to respect the letter and spirit of the document for lasting industrial harmony on ASUU campuses.
ASUU reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring the implementation, saying, “we 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 association stated that a 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).”
NEC stated that 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), saying, “ASUU had no input whatsoever!”
The association expressed surprise 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 a source of funding for research, innovation, and development.”
The statement reads, “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 the government beholden to promises by the Bretton Woods institutions to fund research in Nigeria? The sources of funding for the proposed National Research Council were clearly spelt in our 2025 agreement.”
On the issue of outstanding staff welfare, ASUU noted that 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.
According to ASUU, the renegotiating team said it was meant to chart a new path to industrial harmony in Nigerian universities and make the new Agreement start off orn a clean slate.
ASUU said, “Unfortunately, the 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.”
ASUU added, “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 leave and personal comfort to cover the outstanding work for which they are still being punished.
“The affected students had since graduated, and academic calendars 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 arrears, and for those registered with different Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), Pencom has deliberately delayed the harmonisation of their benefits, by withholding the share of contribution that should come from Pencom.”
According to the statement, the 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.”
The association also raised concerns about recent pronouncements in the education policy, noting that, “In recent months, ASUU has been troubled by some policy pronouncements in the education sector which are anything but salutary.”
ASUU said that the reversal of the mother-tongue policy by Education Minister Dr Alausa, 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.”
ASUU noted that most technologically and industrially advanced countries, including China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea, use their indigenous languages for teaching in the earliest years of schooling, “recognising that children before the age of eight could master six or more languages without hampering their cognitive development.”
ASUU asked, “What research evidence informed the Minister’s conclusion that the use of local languages has ‘significantly weakened” learning outcomes?”
The statement also revealed tha ASUU equally finds “objectionable the government’s declared plan to establish a campus of the Coventry University in Nigeria under the Transnational Education (TNE) framework.”
The statement revealed that ASUU has since conveyed their strong objections to what they described as “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 anan open embrace of the recolonisation of Nigeria’s education,” ASUU said.
ASUU added, “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,” ASUU explained.
ASUU also stated that the recent announcement that government would scrap some courses considered “irrelevant” in public universities came to them as “a rude shock.”
According to ASUU, 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.
ASUU said Dr Alausa 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.
The association disagreed saying “everycourse in the university has its utilitarian values both in the personal and societal spheres.”
ASUU said, “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 rejects “any attempt to whimsically scrap academic programmes in Nigerian universities and shall work with other propeople organisations to resist it.”
ASUU urged the federal government to address the “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 association stated that the increasing frustration occasioned by the “seeming government’s disinterestedness in the welfare of Nigerian academics” is brewing a “pent-up anger” saying it could erupt into a new wave of industrial unrest if not addressed.
ASUU 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 meeting of NEC to be called in the next few weeks to review the situation and take appropriate action as may be necessary,” the statement concluded.
