The Federal Government will today hold a decisive meeting with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Abuja as efforts intensify to resolve the long-running dispute over the 2009 agreement.
Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, is expected to lead the government’s team, alongside the Minister of Labour, representatives of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), and the Solicitor-General. The team will meet ASUU leaders to deliberate on implementing the renegotiated 2009 FGN ASUU agreement, which has been at the centre of the union’s demands for years.
Government sources disclosed that today’s session would focus on producing a clear timetable for the signing and phased implementation of the deal. The urgency follows mounting pressure from ASUU branches nationwide, which warned that their patience had run out after the renegotiation was concluded in December 2024 and submitted to government in February 2025.
At a recent briefing, ASUU’s Abuja Zonal Coordinator, Prof. Al-Amin Abdullahi, insisted that the union had fulfilled its obligations and urged government to demonstrate sincerity by signing the draft immediately to avert another shutdown of public universities.
The 2009 agreement signed during the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s administration outlined commitments to revitalisation funding, institutional autonomy, improved conditions of service for lecturers, and a robust monitoring framework.
ASUU President, Prof. Christopher Piwuna, reiterated yesterday that lecturers had shown restraint despite years of unmet promises. Appearing on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, he said, “We have always demonstrated patience and pursued dialogue. Since 1999, people say ASUU goes on strike often, but they should ask what government has done to prevent this.”
Piwuna, while acknowledging engagements with the Tinubu administration, criticised what he described as government’s “extremely slow” response to the union’s demands.
Meanwhile, Alausa’s intervention has been welcomed across campuses as a sign that the government may finally turn promises into concrete action.
Leave a comment