Pay, Peace and the Politics of Learning

Jeff Ukachukwu

In Nigeria, the academic calendar has, for too long, behaved like a fragile truce rather than a dependable promise. Families plan for semesters the way coastal communities plan for storms: with caution, with backups, with a quiet readiness to start again after everything has been interrupted. Students have learned to measure time not by sessions completed but by months lost—months that do not return, months that cannot be refunded, months that leave behind a residue of frustration and diminished confidence. When a nation normalises the repeated suspension of learning, it is not merely universities that shut down; aspiration, productivity, and the social contract itself begin to fray.

That is the backdrop against which the newly renegotiated agreement between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) must be read—not as a routine labour settlement, but as a statement about whether Nigeria is finally ready to treat higher education as national infrastructure. According to multiple reports, the agreement delivers a 40% increase in academic staff remuneration, with effect from January 1, 2026, and is framed as the culmination of a renegotiation process tied to the long-contested 2009 FG–ASUU pact.

Understanding the importance requires remembering the costs. The dispute has outlasted administrations and strained public patience, shifting from committee rooms to living rooms, policy briefs to cancelled graduations, and dashed hopes for young people. Between 2017 and 2023, industrial actions caused a cumulative 21 months of strike—time lost from learning, research, and the momentum that develops talent. When education becomes episodic, the country pays twice: first, with lost time; then, with reduced capacity.

This agreement is viewed as a turning point because it addresses not only pay but also the costs of academic work. The revised structure, described by the Minister of Education, introduces payment via CONUASS (Consolidated University Academic Staff Salary) and a Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA)—acknowledging that scholarship requires resources. CATA supports journal publications, conferences, internet, society memberships, and research expenses. This isn’t minor. A lecturer without access to current research and networks teaches outdated knowledge. To enhance global competitiveness, Nigerian universities must deliberately and transparently fund academic productivity.

The agreement also creates a Professorial Cadre Allowance for senior academics. Full-time professors reportedly get 1.7–1.8 million yearly (about 140,000 monthly); readers get 840,000 yearly (about 70,000 monthly). This recognises their heavy scholarly and leadership duties. In a country battling brain drain, this is more than an incentive—it helps restore dignity to a vital profession.

The restructuring of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) is crucial, aiming for a clearer, duty-based system explicitly tied to postgraduate supervision, fieldwork, clinical duties, moderation, exams, and leadership. The goal extends beyond higher pay, seeking better governance by minimising ambiguities, reducing suspicion, and linking compensation to visible work. In a system where opacity leads to strikes, greater transparency promotes industrial peace.

But no serious reflection can stop at what is written. Nigeria has signed agreements before, and each time, urgency has faded into the graveyard of good intentions—policy documents that sound historic on day one but become disputed memories by day ninety. That is why the words “agreement implemented” must now demand unyielding attention and continuous pressure. Even ASUU’s leadership, while welcoming this breakthrough, has kept its guard up—highlighting unresolved structural issues and warning that only urgent, deeper reforms will ensure sustainability, especially concerning university autonomy and governance.

This is where the national conversation must mature. Strikes did not become frequent because lecturers enjoy conflict; they became frequent because trust failed. The 2009 agreement was overdue for revision, and the process dragged on through successive administrations’ renegotiation committees before the current committee, led by Yayale Ahmed (inaugurated in October 2024), reportedly reached the conclusion now being unveiled. When routine review becomes a decade-long struggle, both sides learn to bargain with threats. The tragedy is that students become bargaining chips.

If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is committed to its pledge to keep students in school, this agreement must become a rare model of consistent follow-through. The deal underscores dialogue, fiscal realism, and a choice to end disruption. But fiscal realism must not become evasion. The nation will watch the first months of implementation with the vigilance of those who have been disappointed many times. Payment schedules, circulars, disbursement, and compliance—these “small” details are where the state’s credibility will be rebuilt or broken again.

There is also an urgent fairness question: universities are ecosystems. Academic staff welfare is central, but non-academic staff unions and the wider university community will immediately assess whether reforms feel equitable. Responses of other campus unions, already noted in coverage, show that stability requires urgent, simultaneous attention across the whole system. Peace in the university is rarely achieved by a single signature; it is maintained by urgently negotiated justice.

Still, it is both necessary and urgent to acknowledge progress while refusing triumphalism. A 40% review, a tool-based allowance for academic productivity, a structured approach to earned allowances, and recognition for the professorial cadre can, if executed with urgency and faithfulness, reverse the degradation of university work. More importantly, it can urgently restore something Nigeria desperately needs: predictability. Predictability allows students to plan, families to budget, researchers to build continuity, and institutions to rebuild standards—actions that cannot be delayed.

The ASUU–Federal Government agreement should face one clear test: will it return time to students? Lost semesters are gone, but stability may regain time—a calendar that holds, graduations on schedule, uninterrupted research, lecturers who teach with confidence, and students who trust the system.

If implementation matches the ambition of the announcement, January 1, 2026, may be remembered as more than an effective date. It may be remembered as the day Nigeria began to treat its universities the way serious nations treat theirs: as factories of capability, guardians of standards, and the closest thing to a long-term national insurance policy. If implementation falters, it will be remembered as another eloquent moment that could not survive Nigeria’s oldest enemy—our habit of making commitments without building the systems to honour them.

•Ukachukwu is a public affairs analyst based in Lagos.