YOLA, Nigeria – The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to embark on a new wave of industrial action, accusing the Federal Government of distorted implementation and outright neglect of the landmark agreement signed in December 2025. Rising from its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at Modibbo Adama University, Yola, the union warned that the initial stability brought by the 2025 pact is fast waning due to the government’s failure to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) designed to prevent bureaucratic sabotage.
Okay News reports that ASUU President Prof. Christopher Piwuna highlighted several unresolved financial and administrative issues fueling anger among lecturers. These include accusations that Vice-Chancellors are selectively paying allowances such as the Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances (CATA) and Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) rather than mainstreaming them into salaries. The union also lamented the failure to pay the 25–35% salary award arrears and the continued withholding of three and a half months’ salaries from the 2022 strike, alongside persistent shortfalls linked to the IPPIS payroll system.
Beyond welfare concerns, ASUU launched a fierce critique against recent directives from Education Minister Tunji Alausa, vowing to resist what they termed neo-colonial policies. The union rejected the framework to establish a UK-based Coventry University campus in Nigeria and opposed the proposal to scrap courses in the humanities and social sciences, asserting that disciplines like philosophy and linguistics remain critical for national development. ASUU also faulted the reversal of the mother-tongue policy in early childhood education, calling the shift to English-only instruction a contradiction of international best practices.
The union painted a grim picture of the nation’s socio-economic landscape, citing worsening insecurity, inflation, and multidimensional poverty as factors pushing Nigeria toward a national crisis of monumental proportion. While ASUU expressed a willingness to continue dialogue, the NEC has directed an emergency meeting to be convened in the coming weeks to finalize a next line of action. This decision places the future of the current academic session in jeopardy as stakeholders wait to see if the government will move to address the outstanding issues.
