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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) have renewed calls for the Federal Government to release withheld salaries owed to university lecturers, despite the recent payment of five months’ outstanding allowances.
The unions said the clearance of the allowances had brought temporary relief to academic staff across federal universities but stressed that several unresolved financial obligations remained outstanding.
Prof. Adelaja Odukoya, former Lagos Zone Coordinator of ASUU and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), said the payment of the outstanding allowances had eased financial pressures on lecturers.
Odukoya told the Nigerian Tribune that UNILAG had cleared all salaries and allowances linked to recent agreements reached between the Federal Government and university unions.
According to him, similar payments are being made in other federal universities, providing a measure of relief to academic workers.
Also speaking, the National President of CONUA, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, confirmed that the government had paid accumulated components of the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA), alongside other approved allowances.
Sunmonu, a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, said some university administrations that previously used their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to settle the allowances had now reimbursed their accounts following the Federal Government’s release of funds.
Despite the payments, both unions expressed concern over what they described as growing uncertainty regarding the future funding of federal universities.
Odukoya said lecturers were worried by reports suggesting that universities could eventually be required to shoulder responsibility for staff salaries and allowances through their internally generated revenues.
He argued that most Nigerian universities lacked the financial capacity to sustain such obligations without regular government support.
“This is a tall order because universities do not have the internal financial strength to shoulder such recurrent expenditures,” he said.
The ASUU leader also noted that several financial issues remained unresolved, including the 25 per cent and 35 per cent wage awards, promotion arrears and the withheld three-and-a-half months’ salaries linked to the 2022 industrial action.
He described the continued withholding of the salaries as unfair, insisting that academic staff eventually completed the work affected by the strike and that the students involved had since graduated.
CONUA also demanded the immediate payment of the withheld salaries.
Sunmonu maintained that CONUA members did not participate in the 2022 strike action and therefore should not be denied payment.
He said members of the union continued academic activities until universities were shut down by authorities and had since completed all outstanding academic responsibilities.
“We have done all the work that the strike did not allow us to do back then. All our students have graduated. We are not forfeiting the money,” he said.
The renewed demands come amid ongoing efforts by the Federal Government and university-based unions to address longstanding issues affecting funding, welfare and industrial harmony in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
