Christopher Piwuna, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has explained why some federal universities were unable to pay their lecturers full salaries for January.
After nearly 16 years of implementation stalemate, the federal government finally signed a renegotiated agreement with ASUU on January 14 to address the incessant strikes in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions.
The fresh agreement followed intensive renegotiations between a federal government committee and ASUU leadership which was concluded in December 2025.
However, since the beginning of February, there have been reported delays in the payment of lecturers’ salaries across federal universities.
Last week, ASUU members at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) declared an indefinite strike over the non-payment of their full salaries by the university management.
The lecturers later called off the strike after a series of meetings with the management.
As of the time of filing this report, indications suggest that many federal universities have been unable to pay full salaries of lecturers.
A source familiar with developments within the academic community told TheCable that the federal government is yet to release funds to the universities.
According to the source, the ministry of education directed the institutions to pay the full salaries of lecturers from their respective internally generated revenue (IGR).
Piwuna said the situation is largely due to practical difficulties surrounding the implementation of a new salary agreement between the union and the federal government, particularly the delay in passage of the 2026 budget.
According to him, the government has shown a willingness to implement the agreement in full, but the new salary structure cannot be fully effected until the 2026 budget is passed and signed into law.
“Concerning the new agreement, the intention of government is clear; it is to implement it in full. But I want to believe there are practical difficulties at the moment. One is that the 2026 budget has not been passed, let alone becoming law. It is until that is done that the new salary structures will be fully implemented,” the ASUU president told Nigerian Tribune.
He added that payments made in January and February largely stemmed from the efforts of vice chancellors who tried to implement the agreement with available resources.
“In January, some universities were paid in full. When I said ‘in full’ it means that what they paid reflected what we agreed on in the new agreement, while other universities couldn’t meet up with full payment,” he said.
Piwuna added that as of the time of speaking, he was not aware of any university that had paid salaries for February.
“Even for February, I don’t know of any university, as we are speaking, that has paid its workers,” he said.
