The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has given the federal government a four-day deadline to start implementing the newly agreed compensation structure for university teachers.
Christopher Piwuna, ASUU president, stated this on Thursday while addressing at Sa’adu Zungur University’s Yuli campus in Bauchi state.
He said the ultimatum will take effect on Thursday and warned that failing to comply would result in a severe response from the union.
“We have issued a four-day ultimatum from today to the federal government to commence payment of the newly approved salary structure. Failure to comply will attract a strong response from the union,” Channels TV quoted Piwuna as saying.
In January, ASUU signed a renegotiated agreement with the federal government aimed at resolving the cycle of strikes in public tertiary institutions.
The agreement, which introduces a new salary structure for lecturers, brings an end to a 16-year impasse over the implementation of the 2009 FG-ASUU pact on the service conditions of public university staff.
At the signing ceremony, Piwuna expressed confidence that the union would not need to embark on any strike before the government begins implementing the new terms.
Nearly three months on, however, there is little evidence that key provisions of the agreement are being acted upon.
Last week, the ASUU president disclosed that some federal universities had been unable to pay lecturers their full salaries for January, adding that he was unaware of any institution that had settled February salaries.
His remarks followed a declaration of indefinite strike action by ASUU members at the University of Lagos over unpaid salaries, an action that was later suspended after talks with university management.
Piwuna attributed the situation to challenges in implementing the new salary agreement, citing in particular the delay in the passage of the 2026 budget.
What this means: The four-day ultimatum signals that the January agreement, despite the optimism at signing, is already under strain. With salaries unpaid across multiple institutions for two consecutive months, the gap between what was agreed and what is being implemented is widening fast. If the government fails to act, another strike becomes a real possibility, raising fresh questions about whether renegotiated agreements with ASUU can ever survive Nigeria’s chronic budget and implementation failures.
