By Sunday Ameh
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has faulted the Federal and state governments over the continued non-payment of three-and-a-half months’ salaries owed university lecturers and the uneven implementation of the December 2025 agreement.
ASUU President, Prof. Christopher Piwuna, disclosed this while speaking during an interview on Wednesday.
Piwuna said the agreement reached in December 2025 was expected to bring stability to the university system, improve lecturers’ welfare and address longstanding challenges facing public universities.
He, however, expressed concern that several provisions of the agreement had either not been implemented or were being implemented inconsistently.
“It’s really painful to have conversation on issues like this. Our expectation, when we signed an agreement in December 2025, was that we are going at this time to talk about progress that we have made, the stability in the system and concern ourselves with issues that affect Nigerians.”
According to him, the agreement covered improved salaries, funding for public universities and research support, among other provisions.
The ASUU president also said three-and-a-half months out of the seven-and-a-half months’ salaries withheld from lecturers under the previous administration remained unpaid.
He explained that the Federal Government had paid four months of the withheld salaries, leaving three-and-a-half months outstanding.
Piwuna further raised concerns over the implementation of the new salary structure, saying some universities were still experiencing difficulties with salary payments.
“As we stand now, funding is not properly being done according to what was agreed to. Individual universities have to embark on strike before salaries are being paid. Some universities are cut off from the new salary structure.”
He stressed that the implementation challenges extended beyond the Federal Government, noting that state governments also had responsibilities for universities under their control.
Piwuna said while some state governments had commenced implementation, others had yet to fully comply with the agreement, resulting in differences in lecturers’ conditions of service across institutions.
He specifically cited Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, as an example of a governor who had implemented the agreement.
The ASUU president said the union had continued to engage government officials through meetings and correspondence rather than immediately resorting to industrial action.
“We have engaged them; the Minister of Education at federal level, we engaged Senator Larry Tejuosho, the chairman of the implementation committee monitoring of the Federal Government agreement. We have reminded them to do the needful.”
On education funding, Piwuna said inadequate financing remained a major challenge for public universities, particularly in research and infrastructure.
He urged governments to treat education as an instrument of national development, adding that ASUU was willing to work with government on achieving increased funding for the sector.
Piwuna warned that failure to address the outstanding issues could further heighten tension in the university system, while maintaining that ASUU remained open to dialogue with both the Federal and state governments.
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