The implementation of the 40 per cent salary increase approved for university lecturers by President Bola Tinubu is facing fresh uncertainty as the Federal Government has allegedly failed to release sufficient funds to federal universities to sustain the payment, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said.
Chairperson of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) chapter of ASUU, Prof. Florence Onyebuchi Orabueze, said the university had continued paying the approved salary increment despite the Federal Government’s failure to provide the funds required to sustain the payment.
According to Orabueze, UNN management initially relied on its internally generated revenue (IGR) to finance the salary adjustment from January to June. However, she said the Federal Government reimbursed the university only for the period covering January to May, leaving the June payment outstanding.
“When he paid from January to June, then they reimbursed him from January to May. But that of June, the Federal Government hasn’t paid. They haven’t also paid for July,” she said.
Orabueze stressed that the issue was not peculiar to UNN but reflected a wider funding problem affecting federal universities across the country.
“The problem of the payment of 40 per cent salary increment for the 2025 FGN/ASUU renegotiated agreement is a nationwide issue, and not that of UNN,” she said.
She disclosed that the matter was among the issues considered at ASUU’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting recently held in Abuja, where representatives from nearly 100 universities reportedly discussed the government’s implementation of the renegotiated agreement.
According to her, the inability of universities to sustain the salary increase with their own resources could trigger another nationwide industrial action if the Federal Government fails to intervene.
She said ASUU was considering a strike between the end of August and early September if the funding problem remained unresolved.
“Part of the decision was that because the Federal Government is not serious about implementing the whole thing, that by the end of this month… between the end of this month and September, early September, ASUU, at the national level, will go on strike,” Orabueze said.
She explained that UNN had been able to pay its lecturers from January through June only because the university management committed its own resources to the process.
“UNN has paid from January to June. Federal Government owes them. But that of July, like all others, they haven’t been able to pay, and that is because there is no way the IGR can carry it,” she said.
Orabueze further claimed that the situation was widespread, saying representatives at the ASUU NEC meeting discovered that federal universities had not received funding for the July component of the salary increase.
“When we went to Abuja for NEC, more than almost 100 universities, we found out that no federal university has paid that of July,” she said.
The ASUU chairperson also disclosed that several state-owned universities were already facing industrial disputes over salaries and other unresolved issues.
Expressing frustration over what she described as the Federal Government’s attitude towards university lecturers, Orabueze contrasted the 40 per cent salary increase approved for lecturers with the reported 300 per cent increase for judicial officers.
“The Federal Government is not serious with us. They gave judges 300 per cent, but the lecturers who are even training everybody, including judges, even to pay us 40 per cent is becoming very hard for them,” she said.
She said lecturers accepted the 40 per cent increase despite reservations because they were determined to avoid another prolonged disruption of academic activities in Nigerian universities.
“We took 40 per cent, and even to pay that 40 per cent is hard, they are withholding our money,” she said.
According to her, ASUU had previously called off industrial action partly because of the hardship prolonged university strikes impose on students, particularly those from low-income families.
“We called off the strike in October last year because they said that it’s only poor Nigerians that are studying here. So we called off the strike because of poor Nigerians like us,” she said.
Orabueze questioned why the government was struggling to fund an agreement reached with lecturers who had chosen to remain in Nigeria and continue teaching despite challenges facing the university system.
“Why is it impossible that they don’t want to even pay those of us who agreed to stay in Nigeria to teach our children? Why is it that they are finding it difficult to pay us 40 per cent?” she asked.
The development has raised concerns over the stability of Nigeria’s university system, with the possibility of another nationwide ASUU strike looming if the Federal Government fails to resolve the outstanding funding and implementation issues before the union’s stated timeline.
For lecturers and students alike, the coming days could therefore prove critical, as a failure to resolve the dispute may once again place academic activities in federal universities under threat.