By George OPARA
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed disapproval to the federal government over what it described as“haphazard” implementation of the renegotiated agreement on Earned Academic Allowances (EAA).
ASUU President, Chris Piwuna, in an interview on Thursday said the unpaid EAA has now spanned to 18 months.
Spear News Nigeria recalls that after nearly 16 years of implementation stalemate, the federal government endorsed a renegotiated agreement with ASUU on January 14 to address the incessant strikes in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions.
The new accord was sequel to intensive renegotiations between a federal government committee and the ASUU leadership, concluded in December 2025.
But since the beginning of February, there have been reported delays in the payment of lecturers’ salaries across federal universities.
This has triggered widespread agitations across ASUU state chapters in recent days, with branches warning the government of imminent industrial action if the renegotiated agreements signed with the union are not fully implemented.
The ASUU president said lecturers are fed up with what he described as the sloppiness of the federal ministry of education in fully implementing key aspects of the signed agreement, particularly the EAA.
“Our members across the branches feel the pinch, so their responses are expected.
“The federal ministry of education has gone to sleep. We intend to wake them up. When the drums start beating, be sure of what will follow.”
Piwuna maintained that the government cannot sign an agreement and then force vice-chancellors to fund it.
“We agreed that EAA should be mainstreamed to address the problem of accumulated arrears. They are back to the mess of EAA arrears again,” he said.
He noted that the government had boasted of offering university lecturers “professional allowances”, but now “some VCs can’t pay it”.
“Our promotion arrears have been waiting for the approval of the minister of finance. Now they say the new minister has to settle down. We are tired of your tactics. We are fed up,”.
Piwuna explained that the EAA was agreed to be mainstreamed into lecturers’ salaries, but that this has not been done since January.
“We are literally back to the Ngige era of never-ending EAA renegotiation.
“The truth is that we have not received it (EAA) for 18 months.
“It was mainstreamed in the 2025 budget. They did not implement it. This current minister said it would start in January this year. Nothing.”
He further explained, “after signing the December 2025 agreement, we had three allowances added to our salary — 40 percent covering things like journal allowance, conference allowance, book allowance, et cetera”.
“Then we have the professorial allowance. Then a percentage of EAA into our monthly salary,” he added.
“All these have been implemented in the most haphazard manner you could ever imagine.”
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