The Federal Government has restated its commitment to putting an end to strike actions in public universities by addressing the long-standing demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Minister of Education Tunji Alausa gave the assurance on Tuesday while briefing journalists at the State House, Abuja.
He disclosed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had directed him to ensure that negotiations with the university lecturers yield tangible results to prevent further disruptions to academic activities.
“As I told you, the President has mandated us that he doesn’t want ASUU to go on strike, and we’re doing everything humanly possible to ensure that our students stay in school,” Alausa said. “We’ve met literally all their requirements. Now we’ve gone back to the negotiation table. We’re talking, as I spoke to the leadership this morning. We will resolve this.”
He revealed that part of his visit to the Presidential Villa was to brief President Tinubu on the progress made in negotiations with ASUU and to seek further concessions to resolve outstanding issues.
Alausa commended the president’s “fervent and benevolent love for education and human capital development,” noting that the administration remains focused on strengthening the education, health, and social protection sectors as key pillars of national progress.
The Education Minister also defended the launch of the Federal Tertiary Institution Governance and Transparency Dashboard, describing it as a major reform initiative aimed at promoting accountability and transparency in the management of public tertiary institutions.
“With what we launched today, all our public tertiary institutions—including universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education—will now be held accountable,” he said. “The Federal Ministry of Education is actively playing its oversight role. We have now mandated them to report data on student enrollment, budgetary allocations, TETFund and NELFund interventions, as well as endowments and grants. These are now publicly available data.”
He explained that the new dashboard would help strengthen governance, improve transparency, and restore Nigerian universities to global competitiveness.
“We want to bring back the era when our universities competed internationally, as they did 30 or 40 years ago,” he added.
ASUU had on October 13, 2025, declared a two-week warning strike, citing the Federal Government’s failure to address the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement and other unresolved welfare concerns. The union later suspended the strike, giving the government a one-month window to finalize discussions.
The latest government assurances signal renewed optimism that the recurring cycle of industrial action in the university system may soon be broken.
