Academic work in Nigerian universities has been left in the air as a result of synchronized nationwide protests by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), stranding students and raising fears about a prolonged stay at home.
Lecturers walked with placards and sang solidarity songs from Abuja to Lagos, Uyo, Minna, Jos, and other university campuses, calling for payment of arrears in salaries, allowances, and immediate revitalization of public universities.
The federal government was accused by union leaders of ignoring lecturers’ welfare, threatening that the protests were only a beginning of industrial action unless tangible actions were taken.
Abuja protesters demanded released earned allowances and revitalisation funds. ASUU Chairman, Yakubu Gowon University, Dr Sylvanus Ugoh, lamented lecturers’ difficulties, and that staff members had been working with the same remuneration structure since 2009. He lamented rising deaths among academics, with many being stress- and welfare-related.
At a press conference in Oye-Ekiti, ASUU Zonal Coordinator Professor Adeola Egbedokun attributed the federal government’s alleged inaction since President Bola Tinubu took office to the fact that patience was thinning with lecturers.
He listed key demands as: full implementation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, improved funding for universities, infrastructural rejuvenation, payment of salary arrears, unremitted deductions, and halting of victimisation of members.
We will resist, and the consequences would be catastrophic but for the bold actions the government takes. As we watch the government’s planned August 28, 2025, meeting, time is of the essence,” Egbedokun cautioned.
Protests closed down tests at Uyo University, where students were forced to vacate the testing hall mid-test. The same scenes were repeated at Lafia, Gusau, Dutse, Minna, and Sokoto campuses, where lecturers went on strike against the government’s new Tertiary Institution Staff Support Fund loan package as a “poisoned chalice.”
In Nasarawa, ASUU members at the Federal University, Lafia, revealed that more than 240 lecturers perish annually due to poor welfare and economic adversity.
National branch leaders lamented the federal government’s aversion to reconsidering lecturers’ wages for more than 16 years while planning pay rises for political leaders.
The demonstrations, they warned, are both a demand for intervention and a signal that universities risk slipping into another shutdown if immediate action is not taken.
