The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) chapter at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has suspended its strike just hours after the industrial action began on Wednesday.
The decision followed a meeting between the lecturers and the university administration led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development Services), Foluso Lesi, on Wednesday morning.
The UNILAG branch of ASUU had on Tuesday directed its members to withdraw their services effective Wednesday in protest against what it described as “amputated” salaries for January and February 2026.
The union accused the university management of failing to pay the Earned Academic Allowance and Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance for Research across the Akoka and Idi-Araba campuses in January, as well as the Consolidated Academic Teaching Allowance and professorial allowance for February.
Speaking on the development, the chairman of the ASUU UNILAG chapter, Idou Kehinde, said the strike was suspended after the university administration promised to address the issues raised within 48 hours.
According to him, discussions with the management focused on harmonising positions on the Earned Academic Allowances and the professorial allowance for excess workload.
“We met with the administration, they made some promises and said they would act in the next 48 hours. ASUU is a union of intellectuals and principles. We are always procedural in whatever we want to do. We cannot throw away all their submissions,” he said.
“As far as they have invited us, we have to listen to them. We took what they offered in good faith, as opposed to what some of them had earlier bandied around, that we acted in bad faith.”
Kehinde explained that the dispute largely centred on unpaid allowances.
“The issue is our allowances. They only took one aspect out of three and disregarded two. Even the one they took, which is the Earned Allowance, was incomplete. They mutilated it, and we drew their attention to it,” he said.
He added that the union had been asked to provide documentary evidence from the salary structure contained in the Federal Government/ASUU 2025 agreement.
“They challenged us to produce a paper on a signed agreement, which they also have. But we said we would provide a paper to show that the correct Earned Allowance for excess workload was not paid every month. We resolved that issue, and they promised to look into it within the next 48 hours,” he said.
Kehinde noted that the decision to suspend the strike was taken during a congress held around 2 p.m. on Wednesday in order not to disrupt ongoing examinations.
“The action is suspended. We have vacated the resolution. The 48 hours have already started counting,” he said.
He added that the union would not allow students writing examinations to suffer because of the dispute.
“We cannot have them as pawns on a chessboard because our children are also here. If anybody says anything contrary to what we have on the ground, it is a lie and a false representation of what is going on,” he said.
Earlier, the university, through its Head of Communication Unit, Adejoke Alaga-Ibraheem, faulted ASUU for declaring an industrial action without following due process.
However, the management said it would continue engaging the union to resolve the issues, particularly the unpaid Consolidated Academic Teaching Allowances.
It also confirmed that the ongoing student examinations scheduled for Wednesday would proceed as planned.
Findings showed that examinations were conducted in several departments on Wednesday, while a few were postponed until Thursday.