ASUU Issues 14-Day Strike Ultimatum to 20 State Universities Over Breached Agreement

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has directed about 20 state universities to issue 14-day strike ultimatums to their respective state governments.

ASUU President, Prof. Christopher Piwuna, announced the directive on Monday, August 11, 2026, following a National Executive Council meeting held at the University of Abuja on August 8 and 9.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the resolution stems from what the union calls the haphazard implementation of the landmark FGN-ASUU agreement signed in January 2026, which ended a near 16-year stalemate over lecturers’ welfare.

The deal covered the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance, Earned Academic Allowance and a professorial allowance, and followed a ₦50 billion partial release toward the roughly ₦103 billion the union says it is still owed in earned allowances.

A stability claim tested within weeks

The presidency had, only days earlier, described prolonged ASUU strikes as history, citing three uninterrupted academic years under President Bola Tinubu at an event in Nasarawa State.

That claim now sits uneasily beside the union’s fresh ultimatum, which places roughly 20 state institutions on notice, and beside a separate education controversy already unsettling campuses; a Federal Ministry of Education memo raising WAEC’s internal SSCE fee from ₦27,000 to ₦50,000 and NECO’s from ₦30,000 to ₦50,000 from 2027, a decision the National Association of Nigerian Students has publicly rejected.

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Students at the affected universities face the prospect of renewed disruption if state governments fail to act within the two-week window.

Piwuna’s NEC resolution grants individual branches permission to proceed once their specific grievances are verified, meaning the strikes could roll out unevenly, campus by campus, rather than as one coordinated nationwide shutdown, making the crisis harder for the federal government to negotiate away with a single agreement.