Despite the recent payment of five months’ outstanding allowance by the Federal Government, unresolved financial disputes have continued to strain relationship between academic unions and the government.

Although the payment enabled federal universities to clear major backlogs in salaries and allowances, union leaders, however, noted that the payments did not resolve deeper concerns about funding and labour relations.

Former Lagos Zonal Coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Adelaja Odukoya, disclosed that University of Lagos (UNILAG), had completed payments of all outstanding salaries and allowances covered under the latest FG/ASUU agreements.

Odukoya, who is also the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, said similar settlements were taking place in other federal institutions, adding that the release of funds had brought relief to campus workers.

Odukoya said lecturers were apprehensive that the government was planning to shift responsibility for salary and allowance payments to individual universities, requiring them to depend largely on IGR.

He described the model as unsustainable, stating that Nigerian universities lack the financial base to meet heavy recurrent expenditure without federal support.

Odukoya listed some of the outstanding issues to include the 25 and 35 per cents wage award arrears, promotion allowance arrears, and three and a half months’ salaries withheld during the 2022 strike by ASUU.

He insisted that government’s refusal to pay the outstanding 2022 salaries amount to “bare-faced cheating and is in bad faith.

He argued that academic duties for that period were completed after the strike and the affected students had graduated.

Odukoya warned that government’s actions on staff remuneration and university funding is a threat to the stability of Nigeria’s tertiary education system and long-term development.

In the same vein, National President of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), Dr Niyi Sunmonu, confirmed that the federal government had also released the accumulated Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA), a tax-free allowance, and other procedural allowances.

Sunmonu said some institutions had already used their internally generated revenues to settle those allowances, and had to return the funds to their institutional accounts following government’s direct release.

CONUA also demanded immediate payment of the withheld three and a half months’ salaries.

Sunmonu said CONUA members did not declare a strike in 2022, as they continued teaching until universities were shut down by the government. “We have done all the work that the strike did not allow us to do back then. All our students have graduated. We are not forfeiting the money,” he said.

On the wage award and promotion arrears, Sunmonu said the government had promised to capture the funds in the 2026 budget.

He urged the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, to expedite the budgetary and cash-backing process to prevent university vice-chancellors from delaying payments on the grounds of non-release of funds.