From Umar Dankano, Yola
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Yola Zone, has urged the Federal and State Governments across the zone and the country at large to fully implement the 2025 agreement reached between both parties in the interest of peace and industrial harmony.
The Zonal Coordinator of the Union, Comrade Dani Mamman, made the call during a press conference titled “Protect Our Universities, Respect Our Agreement,” held in Yola on Tuesday. He lamented that the governments’ non-compliance with the agreement, eight years after negotiations began, has continued to distort the intended objectives.
Comrade Mamman regretted that eight years of negotiations, promises of fair wages, and commitments to research and innovation were being ignored, distorted, or abandoned. He noted that the Federal and State Governments’ selective implementation of the 2025 Agreement, refusal by some state university visitors to pay the newly agreed salary structure, and persistent interference in university administration were undermining academic freedom, equity, and national development.
“Gentlemen of the press, it may interest you to note that all the state universities in the Yola Zone — ADSU, BOSU, TSU and YSU — are yet to implement the 2025 agreement.
“We call on these visitors to immediately implement the agreement in order to guarantee industrial harmony. Today, we speak not just for academics, but for every Nigerian who values education, fairness, and the future of this country,” the Union stated.
According to ASUU, the December 2025 FGN-ASUU Agreement, signed after eight years of negotiations, is under threat due to the government’s failure to inaugurate the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC), the body mandated to prevent bureaucratic bottlenecks and ensure full execution of the agreement. The Union noted that the momentum generated by the agreement was rapidly waning.
The Zonal Coordinator further stated that partial and selective implementation of salary components, including Consolidated Academic and Tool Allowances (CATA), Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), and Professorial Allowances (PA), remained widespread. He alleged that all state governors, as visitors to state universities in the zone, had refused to implement the new CATA salary structure, thereby undermining the agreement and creating inequity among staff.
He also alleged that some university administrators selectively chose which allowances to pay, further destabilising the system. ASUU therefore protested the selective implementation and demanded immediate and full compliance from both Federal and State Governments to safeguard the hard-earned gains of Nigerian academics.
“Moreover, ASUU rejects the unilateral establishment of the National Research and Innovation Development Fund without its active participation. The 2025 Agreement clearly mandates research funding of at least one per cent of GDP, yet the government’s proposal, denominated in dollars and developed without stakeholders’ consultation, is a distortion of the agreed objectives,” he added.
While condemning alleged political interference in the education sector, ASUU called on stakeholders, parents, students, and patriotic Nigerians to prevail on the government to do the needful, stressing that the Union remained open to genuine negotiations on the implementation of the agreement.
It would be recalled that the President of ASUU, Christopher Piwuna, made a similar appeal during a press conference after the Union’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at Modibbo Adama University on Monday, 11 May 2026, noting that many of the issues remained unresolved.
ASUU Yola Zone comprises Adamawa State University, Borno State University, Federal University Gashua, Modibbo Adama University, Taraba State University, University of Maiduguri and Yobe State University.