Public university lecturers across Nigeria are growing restless over the failure of the Federal Government to pay their salaries promptly, with the Academic Staff Union of Universities confirming that virtually no member of its nationwide membership has received their February salary as of Friday, March 6, and that payment of January salaries remains incomplete at many institutions.
The situation has brought renewed attention to the fragile state of the Federal Government’s financial obligations to university workers, coming just weeks after ASUU concluded what was described as a landmark agreement with the government on new salary structures. That agreement, which was intended to take effect from January 2026, has so far struggled to translate into regular and timely payment.
ASUU stands as the only workers’ union within Nigeria’s public university system, covering universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, that has thus far signed a new agreement with the Federal Government covering revised salary structures. The signing raised expectations among lecturers, many of whom had endured years of salary stagnation, protracted negotiations, and an industrial relations history marked by prolonged strikes that periodically disrupted academic calendars and affected millions of students.
Professor Christopher Piwuna, the President of ASUU, in an exclusive interview with the Nigerian Tribune, confirmed that the implementation of the new salary structures is directly tied to the passage of the 2026 national budget, which has not yet been signed into law.
“Once the budget is passed and becomes a law, there won’t be a hiding place for anybody,” Piwuna stated.
This conditionality has created a holding pattern in which the agreement exists on paper but cannot be given full financial expression until appropriation is authorised through the annual budget. Nigeria has a long history of late budget passage. The 1999 Constitution requires the executive to present an Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly, but there is no constitutionally fixed deadline by which the legislature must pass it. This has repeatedly resulted in delayed implementation of spending commitments, including wages, particularly for workers in the federal education sector.
Nigerian Tribune can authoritatively report that ASUU reached an internal resolution following the signing of the new agreement, establishing that should salaries be delayed beyond the third day of any new month, the union may proceed to declare a strike. Piwuna confirmed this position while also explaining why the union has not activated that clause in the present circumstances.
The conditionality attached to implementation, specifically the budget passage requirement, means the union currently has less legal and moral footing to treat the delay as a straightforward breach of the agreement. Even so, Piwuna was unambiguous about the mood within the union’s membership.
“But all the same, our members are getting agitated for their salaries,” he stressed.
The ASUU president stated that he is not aware of any university across the country that has paid its workers their February salary as of the time of reporting. He said lecturers who have not received their January salary in full are also still waiting, even as February comes and goes without resolution.
Compounding the anxiety is the situation at state-owned universities, where Piwuna disclosed that implementation of the new agreement has not yet commenced at all. He said ASUU has communicated to the visitors of state universities, a term used to describe the state governors who serve as the constitutional visitors and supreme authorities over those institutions, urging them to key into the new order without delay.
The distinction between federal and state universities is important in this context. While the Federal Government funds federal universities directly and is bound by its agreement with ASUU, state universities are under the jurisdiction and funding responsibility of their respective state governments. Salary conditions, payment regularity, and staff welfare at state universities vary significantly depending on the fiscal health and political priorities of individual state administrations. Some states have a record of persistent salary arrears running into months or even years at their universities, a situation that has repeatedly drawn condemnation from ASUU and education stakeholders.
The fact that state universities have not begun implementation suggests that the benefits of the new agreement, when they eventually materialise, may be unevenly distributed, with federal university lecturers potentially receiving the new structures ahead of their counterparts in the state system.
Amid the wider payment difficulties, Piwuna offered commendation to vice-chancellors who took the initiative to make alternative financial arrangements to ensure their workers were paid in full for January, even before the budget-tied salary structures could be activated.
He described this as an act of good faith and institutional responsibility, encouraging those vice-chancellors to remain committed to the practice. He also issued a direct appeal to institutions that still owe workers part of their January salaries to act without further delay.
“Workers deserve their wages,” Piwuna stated.
His comments reflect a broader principle in labour relations: that the internal administrative challenges of an institution or the fiscal constraints of a government do not extinguish an employer’s obligation to pay workers for services already rendered. The fact that some vice-chancellors were able to find a way to pay their staff suggests that the failure to do so at other institutions reflects institutional or administrative gaps rather than a uniform and unavoidable constraint.
On a more positive note, Piwuna acknowledged that the general direction of the country’s public university system is encouraging in at least one regard. He noted that Nigeria’s universities appear to be moving toward more stable academic calendars, a development he said has been broadly welcomed.
ASUU strikes have historically been one of the most significant sources of academic calendar disruption in Nigerian public universities. Between 2009 and 2023, the union embarked on several extended strikes, including an eight-month industrial action in 2022 that was at the time the longest in the union’s history. The disruption during that period resulted in students spending far longer to complete their degrees than the officially prescribed programme durations, caused psychological and financial hardship for students and their families, and drew widespread public criticism directed at both the government and the union.
The current period of relative calm, with a signed agreement in place and no active strike action, represents a departure from that cycle. Piwuna described every Nigerian, including ASUU members, as being genuinely pleased about the drift toward calendar stability. This is a notable statement from a union leader, as it implicitly acknowledges the public cost of past industrial actions and signals that the union is not eager to return to that path if it can be avoided.
Piwuna rounded out his public statements with an appeal to ASUU members for continued patience, while assuring them that the union’s leadership stands firmly behind them during what he acknowledged is a difficult period.
“ASUU leadership is solidly with members at this difficult time,” he said, appealing for more patience even as the union looks forward to the full implementation of the new agreement, including the regular payment of salaries.
The appeal for patience, coming from the head of a union whose members have arguably been more patient with delayed promises than almost any other group of professional workers in Nigeria, carries a weight that goes beyond the current salary dispute. For lecturers who entered the profession with expectations of stable income, academic freedom, and professional dignity, the recurring experience of chasing salaries month after month has, over time, deepened a sense of institutional abandonment.
Nigeria’s universities have operated under conditions of chronic underfunding for decades. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recommends that governments allocate at least 15 to 20 percent of their national budget to education, a benchmark that Nigeria has consistently fallen well short of. Federal allocations to education in recent national budgets have hovered in the range of five to seven percent, a figure that education advocates, including ASUU, have repeatedly criticised as inadequate to sustain a functioning university system, let alone pay competitive wages that can attract and retain qualified academic staff.
The salary question sits at the heart of a broader crisis of brain drain from Nigerian universities. Many of the country’s most talented academics have migrated to universities in Europe, North America, and increasingly the Middle East, where remuneration, research funding, and institutional support are far superior. Those who remain often supplement their university income with consultancy work, private tutoring, or other activities, raising questions about the quality and consistency of teaching and research at public institutions.
The new agreement between ASUU and the Federal Government, when it is eventually fully implemented, is seen by the union as a necessary but not sufficient step toward reversing this decline. What happens in the coming weeks, particularly how quickly the National Assembly passes the 2026 budget and how swiftly the executive disburses funds following its passage, will determine whether the agreement translates into meaningful and sustained change for the academic workers who form the backbone of Nigeria’s public higher education system.
