The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has once again turned up the heat on the Federal Government, demanding immediate action on withheld salaries and a raft of unresolved welfare matters that continue to strain relations between lecturers and the state.
Speaking to reporters at the union’s secretariat at the University of Jos on Friday, ASUU President Prof. Christopher Piwuna made clear that patience within the academic community is wearing thin.
He pressed the government to move swiftly on commitments tied to the FGN-ASUU Agreement reached in December 2025, arguing that continued delay threatens to undo whatever goodwill remains between the union and its employer.
For Piwuna, the stakes go beyond salary arrears. He framed the resolution of these grievances as foundational to the health of Nigeria’s university system the difference between institutions that can function and ones perpetually distracted by labor disputes. Lecturers, he suggested, cannot be expected to deliver quality teaching and research while basic conditions of service remain in limbo.
The press briefing quickly expanded beyond campus concerns into a wide-ranging critique of national economic policy. With the 2027 general elections on the horizon, Piwuna used the platform to challenge political parties and aspirants to reorient their platforms around substantive, structural solutions rather than short-term palliatives.
He took particular aim at development frameworks shaped by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, suggesting Nigeria’s poverty-alleviation strategies have too often been imported wholesale rather than tailored to local conditions. In their place, he called for policies built through genuine participation and grounded in the country’s specific social and economic realities.
Piwuna urged authorities at every level of government to redirect focus toward agriculture and industry as engines of job creation, alongside stronger social protection systems. He also pushed back against Nigeria’s continued reliance on borrowing, arguing that sustainable, homegrown financing options exist for development projects that genuinely serve citizens’ needs.
On fiscal fairness, the ASUU president made a pointed case for progressive taxation, insisting that those with greater wealth should shoulder a larger share of the tax burden. As he put it, “It’s the rich that must be taxed to give the poor a life worth living.”
He further called for a crackdown on corruption and financial mismanagement, including renewed efforts to recover looted public funds and tighten accountability across government institutions.
Education reform featured prominently in Piwuna’s remarks. He argued that Nigeria’s current system leans too heavily on models transplanted from other societies, rather than one designed around the country’s own developmental needs.
He called for greater investment in research, technical education, and skills training areas he believes are critical to equipping young Nigerians for productive employment and reducing the country’s unemployment burden.
The union also renewed its call for sustained investment in university infrastructure and funding, warning that without it, the steady erosion in the quality of higher education will continue.
Piwuna tied the university sector’s struggles directly to Nigeria’s broader economic difficulties, arguing the two cannot be treated as separate problems. He called on governments at every level to refocus their spending and policymaking on the citizens they are meant to serve.
With elections approaching, ASUU is urging Nigerians to scrutinize candidates closely, particularly their positions on education, job creation, poverty reduction, and social protection rather than settle for promises of quick fixes.
The union maintains that what the country needs are policies capable of genuinely transforming its productive base, not measures that merely treat the symptoms of a deeper economic malaise.
Piwuna closed by reaffirming ASUU’s willingness to keep engaging government and other stakeholders in search of durable solutions both for the university system and for the country at large.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
At its core, this briefing was ASUU sounding an alarm: unresolved salary arrears and stalled welfare commitments from the December 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement are undermining Nigeria’s university system and, by extension, its ability to educate and develop skilled manpower.
Piwuna’s broader economic remarks, while wide-ranging, all point back to one message: government must move from short-term palliatives to structural reform in education, taxation, and economic policy or risk deepening the very poverty and instability it claims to be fighting.
As Nigeria heads into 2027, ASUU is urging citizens to hold politicians accountable not for promises, but for concrete plans that address root causes rather than symptoms.
