David Williams
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Akure Zone, has expressed deep concern over the Federal Government’s failure to implement the 2025 Agreement and pay all outstanding benefits owed to members across universities nationwide.
The union also condemned the arbitrary introduction of irrelevant policies that do not align with modern realities and best practices.In a statement jointly signed by zonal leaders of the union, the Zonal Coordinator Adeola Egbedokun affirmed that the union had exhausted its patience and would not hesitate to use every lawful means to achieve its demands.
The statement was signed by Anthony Odiwe, Chairperson, OAU; Pius B. Mogaji, Chairperson, FUTA; Sola Afolayan, Chairperson, EKSU; Abraham Oladebeye, Chairperson, UNIMEDO; Babatope Ogundare, Ag. Chairperson, BOUESTI; and Olatunbosun Ajisafe, Chairperson, AFUED.
Egbedokun said: “Let the Federal and State governments make no mistake: their calculated neglect, unremitted deductions, withheld salaries, and broken promises have generated a volatile, pent-up anger within the academia. We are on the precipice of an uncontrollable industrial explosion.
“While we call on well-meaning patriots to intervene and force the government to implement the 2025 Agreement, ASUU will not beg for its rights. Therefore, in the event that government at both state and federal levels remains recalcitrant, the Union will not hesitate to speak in the language best understood by government.
“We have maintained a studied silence since the signing of the FGN/ASUU Agreement in December 2025 and its public unveiling in January 2026. That silence is now broken. We are here today to expose government’s calculated sabotage of public university education and to issue a stark, uncompromising warning that the ruling class is actively driving this nation into a catastrophic crisis of monumental proportions, and the Union will no longer stand by and watch
“According to the union, the Federal Government’s refusal to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) amounts to the weaponization of bureaucracy and a deliberate move to stall, distort, and strangle the Agreement in its infancy.
Egbedokun noted that the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, unilaterally bypassed ASUU to announce a so-called National Research and Innovation Development Fund (NRIDF) without meaningful consultation or input from the Union.
“We are also disappointed by the Minister’s unilateral declaration of a $500 million fund, which completely violates our agreement that research must be funded by at least 1% of Nigeria’s GDP,” he said.
The union leaders also condemned the nonpayment of outstanding Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo (UNIMEDO).
They said the union would deploy every weapon in its arsenal to ensure neither government nor its agents cheat members out of the hard-fought gains of the eight-year-long negotiation.
The union equally expressed worry over the introduction of policies it described as inimical to the progress of the education sector.
“We are frontally battling a barrage of regressive, unscientific educational policies handed down by an out-of-touch ministry,” the statement read.
The union highlighted the policies to include: the Language Policy Reversal, the compulsory enrollment of academics in the Nigeria Education Repository Databank (NERD), and the war on Humanities and Social Sciences. They concluded that the shocking announcement to arbitrarily scrap courses deemed “irrelevant” is a reckless, short-sighted attack on academic diversity.
