The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Taraba State University (TSU) branch, has challenged claims that the institution’s staff are the highest paid in Nigeria, citing salary comparisons with other state-owned universities that show higher earnings elsewhere.

The branch chairman, Dr Joshua Garba Mbave, stated this on Wednesday while responding to a social media podcast that described TSU, Jalingo, as the country’s highest-paying university.

Mbave said the claim lacked verifiable evidence and could mislead the public about the remuneration of academic and non-academic staff at the institution.

To support its position, the union cited a Taraba State Government fact-finding report presented to it on September 24, 2026, which examined the implementation of the Consolidated Academic/Teaching Allowance (CATA) and Consolidated Non-Teaching Allowance (CONTTA) in four universities.

The institutions covered were Gombe State University, Sa’adu Zungur University in Bauchi State, Yobe State University and Adamawa State University.

According to ASUU, the report found that the four institutions had fully implemented the 2025 Federal Government-ASUU agreement, with their staff remuneration comparing favourably with, and in some cases exceeding, that of TSU workers.

The union also cited salary figures from Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, and Delta State University, Abraka, to illustrate the differences in earnings.

According to the figures presented by ASUU, a graduate assistant at TSU earned N237,331.33, compared with N559,577.49 at Rivers State University.

For professors on CONUASS 07, Step 10, the union put the salary at N1,002,801.94 at TSU, N3,355,231.10 at Rivers State University and N1,667,280 at Delta State University.

ASUU did not provide further details in the statement on the specific salary components or payment conditions underlying the comparisons. However, it maintained that the figures contradicted the claim that TSU was Nigeria’s highest-paying university.

The union also alleged that TSU had not implemented the 30 per cent national minimum wage adjustment or the 25 per cent and 35 per cent wage awards for university staff, leaving arrears from those adjustments unpaid.

Although the university subsequently implemented the 70 per cent national minimum wage adjustment, ASUU said its members had forgone arrears from the earlier adjustments to preserve industrial harmony.

Mbave added that some northern states, including Bauchi, had implemented the wage adjustments and CATA without waiting for other states to take similar action.

The union urged the public and media organisations to verify claims about university salaries against official records. It also demanded full implementation of the 2025 Federal Government-ASUU agreement at TSU and payment of outstandingly arrears.