Federal university lecturers may have received a financial boost following the Federal Government’s payment of five months’ outstanding allowances, but tensions between academic unions and the government remain far from resolved.
While campuses are witnessing renewed optimism after the release of long-awaited funds, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) have insisted that several major financial obligations remain unpaid, including the controversial three-and-a-half months’ salaries withheld during the 2022 university strike.
The relief became evident across federal universities as institutions began settling outstanding allowances and salary-related commitments.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, former Lagos Zone Coordinator of ASUU and current Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Professor Adelaja Odukoya, confirmed that UNILAG had cleared all outstanding payments linked to recent agreements between the Federal Government and ASUU.
According to him, similar payments are being made in other federal universities, bringing a rare sense of relief to academic and non-academic staff.
Also confirming the development, CONUA National President, Dr. Niyi Sunmonu of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, said the Federal Government had fully paid the accumulated Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA) alongside other approved allowances.
Sunmonu disclosed that some universities had previously relied on their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to meet these obligations but have now reimbursed those funds following the government’s release of money.
Despite the payments, both unions expressed concerns about the future of university funding.
Odukoya said many lecturers fear the government may be planning to transfer the responsibility for paying salaries and allowances to individual universities, forcing institutions to depend largely on internally generated revenue.
Describing such a move as unrealistic, he argued that most Nigerian universities lack the financial strength to shoulder such recurrent expenditure.
Beyond the recent payments, ASUU and CONUA maintained that several longstanding issues remain unresolved. These include the outstanding 25 per cent and 35 per cent wage awards, promotion arrears and the withheld three-and-a-half months’ salaries from the 2022 industrial action.
Odukoya described the continued withholding of the salaries as unfair, insisting that lecturers eventually completed the academic work affected by the strike and that the students involved had since graduated.
The demand is not new. ASUU had earlier renewed its call for payment of the withheld salaries and other outstanding entitlements during its National Executive Council meeting in Yola in May 2026. The union had also reiterated the demand in March, maintaining that lecturers should not be denied payment for work eventually completed.
CONUA has also renewed its demand for the immediate release of the withheld salaries. Sunmonu argued that members of the union never declared the 2022 strike and continued their duties until universities were shut down.
“We have done all the work that the strike did not allow us to do back then. All our students have graduated. We are not forfeiting the money,” he said.
On the unresolved 25 per cent and 35 per cent wage awards as well as promotion arrears, Sunmonu said the government had assured the unions that the funds would be accommodated in the 2026 federal budget.
He urged the Minister of Education to expedite the necessary processes to ensure the funds are released promptly, warning that delays could give room for unnecessary bottlenecks at the university level.
The union leaders further cautioned that persistent disputes and what they described as poor handling of labour issues could have serious consequences for Nigeria’s education sector and long-term development.
Odukoya warned that attempts to deny lecturers their legitimate entitlements could undermine the country’s intellectual foundation.
“When government wants to unjustly punish its critical labour force and intelligentsia through barefaced cheating, the country is playing with its developmental future. The country will sooner than later pay for this misadventure in thousandfold,” he said.
