ASUU Warns Of Strike As Lecturers Remain On Same Pay For 15 years

University lecturers across Nigeria have raised fresh concerns over their stalled wages, saying they have earned the same salary for 15 years.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities made the claim during a press briefing in Benin City, where its leaders said the government failed to use the one-month window given to resolve the long-standing 2009 agreement.

The issue resurfaced after the Benin Zone reviewed the government’s response to the negotiation process. According to the union, the unresolved salary and welfare matters remain the core problems threatening peace in public universities. ASUU leaders said they await further instructions from their national executive as tension grows within the sector.

Union officials explained that while progress has been made in a few non-monetary areas, lecturers’ pay and working conditions remain unchanged. They rejected the government’s proposed salary increase, describing it as too small to address the long-running loss of skilled academics leaving the country. They argued that public university workers have been stuck on the 2009 pay structure when the exchange rate was far lower.

ASUU leaders added that a professor today earns less than four hundred dollars monthly, which they described as a troubling reflection of how poorly academic labour is valued. They warned that keeping lecturers on one salary scale for over a decade has encouraged frustration, unrest and the steady exit of scholars to other countries.

The union also faulted the approach of some government officials, saying their statements and actions have slowed down the resolution of issues tied to the agreement. They insisted that the country now earns far more revenue than it did years ago, pointing to allocations shared to states and income generated at the federal level as evidence of improved resources.

ASUU argued that the main obstacle to solving the wage crisis is not the economy but the lack of political will to complete the renegotiation. With the one-month deadline now over, the Benin Zone said it is prepared for any directive from its national body, including the possibility of resuming a nationwide strike.