The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has convened an emergency meeting of all major unions in the country’s public tertiary education sector, following the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) decision to embark on a two-week warning strike over the Federal Government’s failure to honour long-standing agreements.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, NLC President Joe Ajaero said the meeting was being called to coordinate a joint response and to ensure the government urgently addresses the grievances raised by the unions.

The talks are scheduled for Monday, October 20, 2025, at the NLC Headquarters in Abuja and will bring together representatives of unions from universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and research institutes, including the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).

The emergency meeting is expected to chart the next steps for industrial action and explore strategies to safeguard the welfare of university staff, as well as the quality and continuity of public tertiary education in Nigeria.

The higher educational system in the country now remains unstable, and this has suffered repeated shutdowns over funding shortfalls and wage arrears, while successive governments have pledged reforms but struggled to balance rising debt, fiscal constraints, and public-sector wage demands.

It can be recalled that ASUU National President Professor Chris Piwuna announced the strike at a press briefing at the University of Abuja on Sunday, following the expiry of a 14-day ultimatum issued to the government on September 28. The union cited unresolved issues relating to staff welfare, infrastructure, salary arrears, and the implementation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement.

“The struggle for the survival of public education is a fight for the soul of our nation, and we can no longer afford to have our unions stand alone,” the NLC said in its invitation.

“It is imperative that your union is represented at this meeting to contribute to a decisive course of action to compel the government to understand that resorting to threats such as ‘No Work, No Pay’ cannot resolve the issues.”

Negotiations in recent weeks failed to avert industrial action. Education Minister Tunji Alausa said last Wednesday that talks had reached a final phase, noting the government had released N50bn for earned academic allowances and allocated N150bn in the 2025 budget for a needs assessment to be disbursed in three instalments. However, ASUU rejected these measures as insufficient.

The union is demanding full implementation of the 2009 agreement, release of three-and-a-half months of withheld salaries, sustainable funding for universities, protection against victimisation, payment of outstanding promotion and salary arrears, and release of withheld deductions for cooperatives and union contributions.

The NLC emphasised its full solidarity with ASUU and other tertiary education unions, calling for robust participation from all union leaders. It also highlighted the principle of a converse stance, “No Pay, No Work”, urging the government to honour collective agreements and respect the rights of workers.