Anxiety has gripped lecturers in the nation’s public universities as they are awaiting the implementation of their new agreement with the Federal Government, which is to commence with their January salaries.
The university lecturers under their umbrella body- Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)- had on January 14th, 2026, signed a new agreement with the Federal Government ending the 17-year-old controversial agreement.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, who signed the agreement, had declared at the elaborate signing ceremony in Abuja, that the government would begin the implementation with the January salaries.
The key issues in the agreement aimed at ending the long-term industrial disputes in the nation’s ivory towers include salary increment by 40%, increased funding, better infrastructure, structured Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), and 100% pension increment for the retired professors.
Also in the agreement is the future review of the document within a three-year cycle to ensure relevance and sustainability.
A cross-section of university lecturers who are also members of ASUU are currently in anxiety as they are not sure whether Federal Government will be faithful to the terms of the agreement.
It has indeed, a mixed feeling among them. While some feel that 40% is a sad ‘tokenism’ after 16 to 17 years for an agreement that should have been reviewed at least five times since 2009, there are those who believe that half-bread is better than none.
Professor Adelaja Odukoya, a former Lagos Zone Coordinator of ASUU and Dean of Social Sciences, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, for example, told Nigerian Tribune over the weekend in an interview that they are yet to receive their January salaries, and until they do so, they cannot conclude whether the government is faithful or not to the new agreement.
He, however, pointed out that their salaries oftentimes get delayed till about the second to third week of a new month before payment is made.
“And we don’t like our salaries to be delayed,” he added.
Speaking in the same vein, another lecturer, Professor Olusiji Sowande, who is an immediate past National Treasurer of ASUU, also told Nigerian Tribune that ASUU members are happy with their leaders on the new agreement.
According to him, our leaders have done their best to arrive at the new agreement, and the achievement is the collective efforts of the past leaders of the union.
Sowande, who teaches at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB), explained that the current leaders had to team up with the previous leaders to arrive at the new agreement, and if they could have their way, they would have bargained for a better deal.
“But what they arrived at is still in order, especially in the current economic reality of the country,” he noted, adding. “And before they accepted the government offer, they came back home to seek the Congress’s approval, which they got; otherwise, they would not have signed on their own.
The belief is that if we look at the whole issue critically, within the last 16 to 17 years of the previous agreement, ASUU members have enjoyed, like every other worker in the government employment, the 70 percent minimum wage and the 30 to 35 percent wage award.
“So, this new 40 per cent increment is something moreso that three years is not far from now to do another review if the government can be sincere and faithful to the implementation.
“But now, we are all waiting and hoping to receive bank alerts as regards our January salaries and we don’t know whether bank alerts will begin to drop from tomorrow (today) and for government to also start addressing other issues in the agreement,” he concluded.
