Efforts to finally resolve the prolonged Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) crisis are underway, as Federal Government prepares to meet the union in Abuja this week over the contentious 2009 agreement.
Gatekeepers News reports that according to insiders, Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa will sit with Minister of Labour, officials from National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), and Solicitor-General to engage ASUU leadership on implementing the renegotiated 2009 FGN–ASUU pact and recent reports from negotiations.
The discussions are expected to establish a timetable for formal endorsement and phased rollout.
Sources said the urgency stems from growing warnings by ASUU branches nationwide that their patience has worn thin since the renegotiation process wrapped up in December 2024 and was submitted to government in February 2025.
ASUU insists the draft must now be signed and put into effect to avoid another nationwide shutdown of public universities.
Professor Al-Amin Abdullahi, ASUU Zonal Coordinator (Abuja Zone), emphasised during a media briefing that the union has fulfilled its obligations and now expects the government to act.
He recalled that the 2009 agreement initially signed under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua remains the heart of the dispute, containing commitments to revitalisation funding, autonomy for institutions, improved salaries and conditions for academics, and a monitoring framework for compliance.
The direct intervention by Alausa, observers noted, has been seen across campuses as a step toward restoring trust and demonstrating government’s willingness to translate promises into action.
Meanwhile, ASUU President Christopher Piwuna stressed that lecturers have endured long enough.
He said, “We’ve been on this for such a long time, and we have, in our view, always demonstrated patience, understanding, and have adopted dialogue to try to address these issues.”
Piwuna further lamented public perceptions and government’s slow pace in addressing their concerns.
He remarked on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday saying, “Since democracy started in 1999 to now, people are quick to say that ASUU has been on strike and schools have been closed, and you wonder what the government thinks about these actions.”
The ASUU President added that although ASUU has engaged with the Bola Tinubu administration, the federal response has been “extremely slow.”
