UPDATED: ASUU suspends warning strike
By Jeffrey Agbo
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced the suspension of its warning strike which began last week across all public universities in the country.
President of ASUU, Chris Piwuna, announced the suspension on Wednesday at a press conference held in Abuja.
According to Piwuna, the development followed intervention by the Senate and some other well-meaning Nigerians.
Piwuna recalled that ASUU declared the warning strike on October 13, 2025, after what he described as the government’s failure to respond to several appeals to address the lingering renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement and other welfare-related concerns of university lecturers.
He said, “When we gathered here about 10 days ago to painfully declare a warning strike, it was a decision that left us with no other choice. The government had ignored our repeated overtures to address issues critical to the survival of Nigeria’s public universities.”
The ASUU president revealed that following the commencement of the strike, the Federal Government re-engaged the union through a team led by Yayale Ahmed, which met with ASUU representatives on October 16 and 18, to discuss the government’s response to the draft renegotiated agreement.
According to him, although the meetings did not fully resolve all issues, the union recognised that significant progress had been made compared to the pre-strike period.
He said, “We have not achieved all our objectives, but we are certainly not where we were before the strike began. This shows that had the government responded earlier, there would have been no need for the action.”
Piwuna also commended the intervention of the Senate Committees on Tertiary Education and TETFund, and Labour, as well as the Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, whose mediation, rekindled hope for a lasting resolution.
He stated that the National Executive Council (NEC) of ASUU, after an emergency meeting held from October 21–22, 2025, reviewed the situation and concluded that the warning strike had achieved part of its purpose, particularly in compelling the government to return to the negotiation table.
“While noting that more work remains to be done, NEC resolved to suspend the warning strike to allow for a conducive atmosphere for further engagement,” Piwuna announced.
He, however, warned that should the government fail to resolve the outstanding issues within one month, the union would be left with no option but to resume strike action without further notice.
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