Posted by Chinenye on Thu 21st May, 2026 - tori.ng
Tension is building quietly across public universities as lecturers signal that a new nationwide crisis may be approaching, driven by stalled agreements, unpaid entitlements and rising frustration over broken promises that appear to be stretching the system to its limit.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Sokoto Zone, has raised the alarm that Nigerian public universities could be on the verge of another industrial crisis, citing the Federal Government's failure to fully honour commitments made to the union.
The warning came during a press briefing held in Sokoto on Thursday, where the union accused both federal and state governments of ignoring pressing welfare and funding concerns affecting university lecturers and institutions.
Speaking at the event, the Zonal Coordinator, Abubakar Sabo, said the ongoing delay in implementing the 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement was fuelling tension on campuses and putting industrial peace at risk.
He noted that although the agreement was publicly signed in January 2026, the government had not yet set up the committee responsible for monitoring its implementation, leading to inconsistencies and uneven application of the agreement across institutions.
"The continued delay in addressing these issues is capable of provoking avoidable industrial unrest in the university system," he warned.
Sabo also pointed out that a number of universities had not yet applied the agreed 40 per cent salary increase tied to Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances, Earned Academic Allowances and Professorial Allowances.
The union further listed a range of outstanding welfare concerns, including unpaid salary arrears from a 25–35 per cent wage award, promotion backlogs, salary shortfalls linked to the IPPIS payment platform, unremitted deductions, withheld salaries from the 2022 strike, and delayed pension payments for retired lecturers.
State-owned universities in the Sokoto Zone were said to be facing additional difficulties, such as unpaid academic allowances, failure to remit cooperative and union deductions, the non-payment of annual salary increments since 2020, and the lack of governing councils in some schools.
On government policy, ASUU criticised the proposed establishment of a Coventry University campus in Nigeria under a Transnational Education arrangement, arguing that such a move would undermine local universities and increase dependence on foreign educational institutions.
The union also opposed plans to eliminate certain humanities and social science programmes, maintaining that every academic discipline plays a role in national development.
It attributed rising unemployment in the country to bad economic policies, corruption and skewed priorities not to the type of courses students study.
Regarding security, the union expressed concern over the escalating threat of banditry, kidnapping and communal clashes across Northern Nigeria, stating that both students and lecturers were increasingly living and working in fear.
ASUU called on all tiers of government to tackle insecurity, poverty and unemployment as a matter of urgency, and appealed to parents, students, civil society groups and concerned Nigerians to support the push for a well-funded and functional university system.
While affirming its willingness to engage in dialogue, the union made clear that it would not stay silent if agreements continued to be ignored and the public university system kept deteriorating.