FG, ASUU Sign Agreement, As Varsity Lecturers Get 40% Pay Rise

The Federal Government has recorded a breakthrough in the education sector with the signing of a renegotiated agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.

After more than 16 years of stalled negotiations and recurring industrial disputes, the Federal Government of Nigeria has formally approved a 40 per cent salary increase for academic staff in federal universities.

The new agreement comes with improved pensions, a new funding framework, and the introduction of a Professorial Head Allowance for the first time.

The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this at the unveiling of the agreements between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Abuja yesterday.

The minister identified key provisions of the new federal agreement to include a 40 per cent salary increase as part of efforts to improve welfare and address long-standing remuneration concerns, and an improved pension structure where professors will now retire at the age of 70 with pensions equivalent to their final annual salary.

The agreement also introduces a new funding structure with dedicated allocations for research, laboratories, libraries, equipment, infrastructure development, and staff training.

In the new agreement, a National Research Council is to be established with statutory funding of at least one per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to strengthen research, innovation, and development in universities.

Alausa said, “For the first time in the history of this country, a sitting president took full control, full ownership of this long-standing challenge that confronted the educational system and accorded its leadership attention to getting us to where we are today.