The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced a two-week warning strike to protest what it described as the federal government’s continued indifference to its long-standing demands.

Addressing journalists on Sunday at the union’s national secretariat in the University of Abuja, ASUU President, Chris Piwuna, said the strike would commence on October 13 and be observed across all university branches nationwide.

Piwuna explained that the decision followed several unfruitful engagements with the government over issues affecting Nigeria’s public universities, including poor funding, unpaid academic allowances, and stalled negotiations on key agreements.

“The problem with this government is that they are slow in responding to our demands,” Piwuna said. “When we were about to embark on strike action, we went for a meeting in Sokoto and they gave us three weeks, which we accepted. During those three weeks, we never heard a word from them until the period elapsed.”

The union leader lamented that the federal government had failed to take meaningful steps to resolve the crisis despite repeated warnings and appeals from ASUU.

On October 8, Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, had appealed to the union to shelve the planned strike, assuring that negotiations with aggrieved unions in the tertiary education sector were at their final stage.

However, Piwuna insisted that the appeal came “too late,” saying the strike would proceed as planned unless the government takes concrete action to meet the lecturers’ demands.

ASUU’s latest decision marks another chapter in the recurring standoff between the union and the federal government — a cycle that has often disrupted academic calendars and heightened uncertainty for university students across the country.

Melissa Enoch

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