I became nervous in recent days not because of one headline, but because of a pattern hiding in plain sight. Every few days another state university appears on the news with the same three words: “indefinite strike begins.” First it was one, then another, then five, until it felt like almost every state university in Nigeria was grinding to a halt at the same time.
It started with a 14-day ultimatum at ASUU’s NEC meeting on August 8 and 9, 2026, and by August 26 the gates were shutting in Keffi, Owerri, Uturu, Lapai, Bokkos, Kaduna, Jalingo, Akungba, Ekpoma, Enugu, Bayelsa, Ondo, Okitipupa, Oyo, Akamkpa, Wudil, Kano and more. Twenty state institutions, one after the other, telling students to go home.
The pain behind it is older than this strike. If federal universities are not exactly paradise, state universities feel like the room next door where the lights flicker and the roof leaks. Lecturers there live with dehumanizing conditions of service, welfare that never arrives, salaries that suffer quiet deductions, and promotions that come late if they come at all. Infrastructure cannot keep up with rising enrolment, and internally generated revenue, the money that should keep the lights on, is often hijacked at the state level.
A friend put it bluntly: they must beg for permission to spend even a fraction of their own IGR, and that kind of bottleneck kills quick decisions and smooth running. It reminded me of George Orwell’s line that “some animals are more equal than others,” because in Nigeria’s university system, your address matters. Federal first, state second.
That inequality is not accidental. It mirrors what political scientists call “fiscal federalism failure” and what scholars of decentralization like Robert Prud’homme have warned about: when you devolve responsibility without devolving resources and autonomy, you create weaker institutions. We saw the same logic in the recent debate over state police. One sharp comment went viral: everything federal is better managed than state, federal hospitals, federal roads, federal courts. If federal police is bad, he argued, state police funded by governors will be worse.
I keep thinking of that argument now, because the same governors who control state houses of assembly, state electoral commissions, local government accounts, and often the state judiciary, are the same ones expected to fund state police and to run state universities with absolute authority. We have lost faith in state assemblies that act as appendages of the executive. We watch state electoral umpires praise governors while announcing 100% victories, as in the recent Bauchi case where APM swept everything after the governor’s defection, and we shrug because it feels normal. Local government chairmen installed as puppets answer “yes sir.” In that environment, handing over security and education funding to the state looks less like empowerment and more like exposure.
The strike itself is about money, but money wrapped in broken promises. The January 2026 Federal Government-ASUU agreement introduced a 40% upward review, not as a flat addition to basic CONUASS pay but mainly through the Consolidated Academic Allowance and Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance. Implementation started in February and CATA was captured in the budget. But running alongside it are the unpaid arrears from the earlier 25% and 35% adjustments for other staff, which SSANU was still chasing in July 2026. Non-academic unions negotiated separately and ended up closer to 35%. So what we have is not one universal raise, but a layered, uneven settlement. Federal universities moved faster. Many state universities did not. By August, ASUU was warning of collapse.
At Plateau State University, Bokkos, ASUU-PLASU announced an indefinite strike after a 14-day ultimatum expired. Chairperson Vincent Choji and Secretary Lomka Kopdiya listed six unresolved items: the 2025 agreement, arrears from January 1, 2026, 22 months of 25/35% wage award arrears, contributory pension, safe staff accommodation, perimeter security, and an end to the intimidation of union leaders.
At Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, ASUU-IBBU Chairman Galadima Bala said the same thing in different words: the 2025 agreement was signed with state governments in the room, it must be implemented. He noted that about 16 state universities had started implementation, Bauchi, Gombe, Benue, Yobe, Osun, Ekiti, Kano, Nasarawa, while Niger risked being left behind. He also cited brain drain, claiming Kaduna State University had lost over 200 lecturers, a figure the university disputed, but the point landed. Teachers are leaving where the agreement is ignored.
Here is where theory helps us see beyond the drama. Sociologist Max Weber wrote about legitimate authority and the monopoly of resources. When a state government controls both the purse and the oversight institutions, accountability collapses. Economist Albert Hirschman explained that when people cannot use “voice” and “exit” fails, institutions decay. In state universities, voice means ASUU congresses and ultimatums. Exit means lecturers resigning for better places, or students dropping out. Both are happening.
Public choice scholars like James Buchanan would also point to the incentive problem: governors face competing demands and short political cycles, so long-term investment in universities loses to immediate patronage. The result is what we see, selective implementation. By late August, Ekiti, Benue, Osun, LAUTECH and KWASU had started the new package and stayed out of the strike. AAUA had briefly suspended an earlier action, then returned to it. The rest remained shut.
The IGR confusion makes it worse. People remember the 2023 policy that asked federal universities to remit 40% of IGR, which was suspended in December 2023. That is not what is funding the 2026 salary deal. But the 2026 implementation documents do push certain costs to university councils and IGR, postgraduate supervision, examination moderation, some honoraria. Core salaries should come from budget appropriation, but these extras must come from money universities generate themselves. For institutions with weak IGR, that is a squeeze. Add inflation, exchange rate pressure, electricity, accreditation, security, and you get fee hikes.
At FUT Minna, new Master’s fees jumped from ₦128,500 to ₦347,500. At ATBU, PGD, MSc and PhD fees now sit between ₦285,000 and ₦367,000. The Presidency insists tuition remains free, and technically it does. The rise is in sundry charges, registration, ICT, library, lab, supervision. The total paid by students climbs anyway.
So we are left with a cruel chain. Agreements raise staff costs. Some components are pushed to IGR. Universities chase revenue. Students pay more, especially postgraduates who have the least protection. Government says the agreement is implemented. ASUU says the money is not enough and talks of more action. An emergency NEC meeting looms at the end of August.
I sympathize with the lecturers, because the job already demands more than it gives. State university teachers in particular carry impossible workloads and still look worn out in ways that tell you everything. But I also feel a cold fear. If we cannot manage state universities, where the stakes are classrooms and laboratories, how will we manage state police, where the stakes are life and death? The same governance deficits haunt both, weak oversight, captured institutions, revenue centralization, and a culture where power answers to itself.
What state universities need is not pity. They need fiscal autonomy, predictable funding, protection of IGR, and transparent implementation tracked university by university. Without that, the strike will end and return, students will pay more and learn less, and the best lecturers will keep exiting. And we will keep shedding tears for institutions that were meant to lift an entire generation, but are instead being slowly bled by the very structures meant to sustain them.
Bagudu Mohammed is the Founder, Alternative Perspectives.
Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com
Email: bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com | Phone: 0703 494 3575
