The Academic Staff Union of Universities has warned the Federal Government to expect severe action if it continues to delay implementation of the 2026 agreement, particularly the failure to set up the Implementation Monitoring Committee that was supposed to ensure the deal actually gets executed.
The union unveiled the agreement on January 14, 2026, with considerable fanfare, but the goodwill is fading fast. Professor Abdulkadir Muhammad, the Kano Zone Coordinator of ASUU, said on Wednesday that the government's inability to establish the IMC is the core problem. That committee was meant to protect the agreement from the kind of bureaucratic foot-dragging and delays that have killed union deals before.
What ASUU is seeing instead is a mess. Federal Government officials have implemented bits of the agreement in a scattered, poorly coordinated way. Only a handful of state governments have actually adopted and enforced it. University administrators are cherry-picking which parts to implement, selectively rolling out the Consolidated Academic Tool Allowances, Earned Academic Allowances, and Professorial Allowances even though these were supposed to be merged into the Consolidated University Academic Salary Scale as part of monthly pay. That is not what was agreed.
Several state governors, who are visitors to state universities, have simply ignored the agreement even though their universities' representatives sat at the negotiation table. ASUU's Kano Zone praised the few state universities that have led by example but condemned the vice-chancellors of public universities who have refused to implement the salary component of the 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement, either partially or outright.
The union called on both Federal and State Governments to respect the agreement and keep industrial peace alive in Nigerian universities. ASUU has spent eight years negotiating this deal, from 2017 to 2025. Their members need to see the money they fought for.
The breakdown is worse than just salary delays. The absence of the IMC has also left another major provision in tatters: the proposed National Research Council. On Wednesday, April 7, 2026, Education Minister Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa announced that the Federal Executive Council had finalised plans to establish a National Research and Innovation Development Fund. ASUU had no hand in this. The minister mentioned a $500 million funding figure without crediting the provisions that ASUU had negotiated into the FGN-ASUU research, innovation, and development framework.
Professor Muhammad said the union does not oppose contributions from critical stakeholders toward developing the legal and policy framework for the fund. But the Federal Government must stick to the objectives that were carefully designed in the new agreement. ASUU will strongly oppose any attempt by external interests or their local collaborators to undermine or divert Nigeria's research and development agenda.
The Kano Zone has called on both tiers of government to honour their commitment to full implementation. If they do not, ASUU says it will act. The enthusiasm that surrounded the January agreement is already cooling. Much more delay and it will vanish altogether.
