By Teddy Nwanunobi
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has warned the federal and state governments to avert another shutdown due to their failure to implement to the letter the key components of the 2025 FGN/ASUU Agreement.
In separate calls, the union warned that public universities may face another round of industrial crisis, if urgent action is not taken.
At a press briefing held at the NUJ Press Centre, Zuru Road, Sokoto State, the Zonal Coordinator, Comrade Abubakar Sabo, who spoke on the resolutions from the Union’s National Executive Council meeting at Modibbo Adama University, Yola, on May 9 and 10, 2026, described the implementation of the 2025 Agreement as “slow, distorted and partial”.
He noted that despite its public presentation in January 2026, the Federal Government has yet to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) meant to ensure compliance across institutions.
According to him, the absence of the IMC has opened the door to bureaucratic delays and selective implementation by university administrators. He added that several universities in the Zone are yet to reflect the 40% increment through Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances, (CATA), Earned Academic Allowances, (EAA), and Professorial Allowances in monthly salaries.
Sabo listed six major unresolved welfare issues affecting academics nationwide: arrears of the 25–35 per cent salary award, promotion arrears, salary shortfalls arising from IPPIS, unremitted third-party deductions, withheld three-and-a-half months salaries from the 2022 strike, and delayed pension payments for retired staff.
He stressed that state universities in the Zone face peculiar challenges. SSU and SSUES have not paid annual increments since 2020 and owe two sessions of EAA. He added that SSU, SSUES and ZAMSUT have not remitted cooperative deductions and union dues, while SSUES is still operating without a Governing Council.
Similarly, the Zonal Coordinator of the Benin Zone of ASUU, Prof. Monday Lewis Igbafen, said the union was deeply disappointed that the government had allegedly reneged on promises made during the unveiling of the agreement on January 14, 2026.
According to him, the agreement was expected to bring lasting industrial harmony to Nigeria’s public universities after years of negotiations over the 2009 ASUU agreement.
Igbafen disclosed that ASUU’s National Executive Council meeting held at Modibbo Adama University reviewed the level of implementation and concluded that the government’s actions were pushing lecturers “back to the trenches.”
The Union accused federal university administrators of distorting the implementation of allowances by selectively paying Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances (CATA), Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), and Professorial Allowances, contrary to the agreement which stipulates that the allowances be integrated into salaries.
Daily NewsCraft reports that the ASUU warned that failure to act could lead to the paralysis of public universities across the country.