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ASUU orders nationwide 14-Day warning strike from Monday
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) leadership has instructed its chapters nationwide to initiate a 14-day warning strike starting tomorrow, Monday, October 13, 2025.
ASUU’s national president, Prof. Chris Piwuna, shared this update during a press conference currently underway at the union’s base in the University of Abuja.
He explained that launching the full-scale warning action was unavoidable due to the authorities’ inaction on the union’s requests.
“Compatriots of the press, it goes without saying that there is nothing sufficient on ground to stop the implementation of the ASUU-NEC’s resolution to embark on a two-week warning strike at the expiry of the 14-day notice given on the 28th September 2025.”
READ ALSO: ASUU issues 14-Day ultimatum, threatens Indefinite strike
“Consequently, all branches of ASUU are hereby directed to withdraw their services with effect from midnight on Monday, the 13th October, 2025.
“The warning strike shall be total and comprehensive as agreed at the last NEC meeting,” Piwuna said.
During his recent interview on Channels Television, Piwuna urged the national government to urgently tackle ongoing challenges facing academic staff in higher institutions.
He praised Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa for his role in securing the disbursement of ₦50 billion toward the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) due to union members.
“I commend Dr. Alausa for fighting within government circles to ensure that the money comes out,” Piwuna said. “We’ve seen his personal effort to get that done.”
That said, he pointed out that the released funds cover just a fraction of what ASUU is entitled to.
“The full amount owed in earned academic allowances stands at about ₦103 billion. We had agreed with the government under Dr. Ngige to forfeit 50%, provided the remaining 50% would be paid and mainstreamed into our salaries. But even that payment was delayed until recently,” he explained.
Piwuna also revealed that officials withheld 20% of ASUU’s allocated ₦50 billion to cover obligations for other university employee groups, including the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU)—a move the union endorsed without protest.
“We did not argue over it. We’ve continued to make sacrifices,” he said. “Dr. Alausa himself has acknowledged and appreciated us for that sacrifice.”
While acknowledging the steps taken by the present leadership, ASUU’s head highlighted that the public should recognize the substantial compromises the union has offered for the greater good.
“When people say President Tinubu or Dr. Alausa has done something, yes, we’re not disputing that. But we too have made great sacrifices,” he added.
Piwuna noted that the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) convened urgently last week to review correspondence from Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, CFR, head of the government’s negotiation team on ASUU’s pending matters.
“The letter from Alhaji Yayale Ahmed was considered by our union as a delay tactic by the government,” Piwuna said. “They had asked for two weeks about two weeks ago, and in the new letter, they are asking for another three weeks to get back to us. NEC considered that as an attempt at delaying the resolution of this crisis.”
He added that the NEC session included delegates from every ASUU branch, with representatives from more than 70 established universities present.
“We all met and looked at the state of our struggle, where we are, and what next steps to take,” he stated.
Piwuna expressed frustration that, despite numerous discussions and assurances, core concerns remain unaddressed, such as outstanding wage backlogs, academic allowances, and salaries frozen from the 2022 dispute.
“We’re still being owed 12 months of the 25–35% salary increase awarded by this current government. We also have three and a half months of salary that was withheld from the 2022 action. We think that that action by government to withhold our salary is punitive,” he said.
Regarding the debated ‘no work, no pay’ principle, Piwuna indicated that the labor tribunal’s decision left the issue open-ended.
“The court said it was okay if government paid us our salaries, and it was also okay if they decided not to pay. Basically, it was left to the government’s discretion,” he explained.
ASUU’s leader cautioned that the union’s tolerance is nearing its limit, and without real advancements, it will move forward with the intended warning action.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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