Follow Us on Google
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the Federal Government of foot-dragging in the full implementation of the agreement reached with the union in December.
The union said it had observed that the government was implementing the agreement piecemeal, contrary to the agreed terms, warning that the development could lead to a breakdown of industrial peace in the university system.
In a statement yesterday, ASUU president, Prof. Chris Piwuna, warned that the momentum generated by the unveiling of the 2025 FG/ASUU agreement in January 2026 might soon be lost if the government fails to fully implement the agreement.
He said: “Our fear is predicated on the government’s failure to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC), which is expected to shield the agreement from bureaucratic bottlenecks and guide its strategic actualisation.
“So far, the Federal Government’s agents have implemented the agreement in a distorted and uncoordinated manner, while only a few state governments have embraced and implemented it.
“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), whereas all of these should have been mainstreamed into the Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS) as monthly salary packages for professors.
“Some state governors, as visitors to state universities, have turned their backs on the agreement despite the active participation of representatives of their governing councils and universities during negotiations.”
The ASUU president said the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) condemned the partial or non-implementation of the salary component of the 2025 FG/ASUU agreement by vice-chancellors and called on the federal and the state governments to respect both the letter and spirit of the agreement in the interest of lasting industrial harmony on campuses.
He warned that ASUU would stop at nothing to ensure that all its members fully benefited from the modest gains of the eight-year negotiation process spanning 2017 to 2025.
Other News
“The gap created by the non-inauguration of the IMC is equally evident in the distorted implementation of another key component of the December 2025 agreement,” he noted.
Prof. Piwuna further explained that before the conclusion of the December 2025 agreement, members of the Federal Government’s renegotiating team, led by Mallam Yayale Ahmed, made frantic efforts to resolve all outstanding entitlements of lecturers with the relevant authorities.
According to him, this was aimed at charting a new course for industrial harmony in Nigerian universities and ensuring that the new agreement commenced on a clean slate.
“Unfortunately, the government did not see things this way, or so it appeared. Many of the issues were unresolved and remain unresolved to date. These include arrears of the 25 to 35 percent salary award, promotion arrears, remittances of third-party deductions such as check-off dues, cooperative society deductions and pension contributions, salary shortfalls arising from the IPPIS application, and the withheld three-and-a-half months’ salaries occasioned by the 2022 ASUU strike action.
“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 measured solely by physical presence at the workplace.
“What many critics do not know is that only teaching is suspended when the government pushes ASUU to embark on strike. Research and community service continue seamlessly. As for the 2022 strike action, our members sacrificed their annual leave and personal comfort to cover outstanding work for which they are still being punished.
“The affected students have since graduated and academic calendars have been regularised in all public universities for three consecutive years.”
He added that the situation of retired academics was equally troubling. “In many states, for those who retired from state universities, their pensions have remained unpaid for years. For those registered with different Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), PenCom has deliberately delayed the harmonisation of their benefits by withholding the contributory share due from the commission.
“NEC reviewed and strongly frowned at this inhuman treatment meted out to our retired colleagues. Any further delay in addressing these lingering issues amounts to overstretching the patience of ASUU members.
“NEC once again calls on President Bola Tinubu, as Visitor to federal universities, to immediately address the vexatious delay in resolving salary and other staff welfare issues, including the pension matters affecting our colleagues, in order to douse tensions threatening the fragile industrial peace on our campuses,” he warned.
