The Academic Staff Union of Universities has dropped its earlier threat to go on strike after the delayed payment of June 2025 salaries to its members.

The Chairman of the University of Abuja branch of ASUU, Dr. Sylvanus Ugoh, confirmed this during an interview with LEADERSHIP on Tuesday.

Dr. Ugoh explained that the union suspended its plan to withdraw services because salaries began to appear in members’ accounts before the 11:59 pm deadline set by the branch.

“The June 2025 salary of our members started to drop before the end of the 11:59 pm Monday 7th July, 2025 ultimatum given by ASUU UniAbuja. Therefore, the Branch did not activate the withdrawal of service as earlier resolved by Congress,” Ugoh stated.

This decision has provided a temporary relief from what could have escalated into a nationwide academic shutdown.

Earlier, the national leadership of ASUU had instructed branches to begin service withdrawal if lecturers’ June salaries were not paid on time.

This directive was based on a National Executive Council resolution enforcing a “No Pay, No Work” policy, after recurring salary delays, which ASUU attributed to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

ASUU President, Professor Chris Piwuna, on Monday described the problem as a result of the government’s “lackadaisical attitude,” saying that despite several discussions with relevant officials, lecturers still faced unnecessary delays in receiving their salaries.

“We want to work, but we cannot because they have not allowed us to work. It’s a deliberate act. The payment platform isn’t the problem. The issue is that those in charge of releasing funds are simply not doing their jobs,” the ASUU president had said.

Piwuna also emphasized that the hardship caused by the shift from the IPPIS to the GIFMIS platform had worsened the difficulties faced by lecturers, and that any university where members had not been paid by July 7 was expected to begin strike action immediately.

The Senator stated that the FCT minister does not understand the people’s needs and is failing to address them.

The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, Ireti Kingibe, says residents of the capital will take action against FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, in the upcoming local government election in Abuja.

Kingibe, while appearing on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm, said Wike is out of touch with the people’s needs and has not been meeting them.

“The truth is that the people of the FCT resent Wike,” she said. “They are not happy with his attitude and his failure to meet their needs.”

She noted that the forthcoming local council elections would serve as a test of the minister’s performance.

“The people will show him who owns the FCT during the council polls,” she added.

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Daniel Bwala, a presidential aide, has said that his former principal and ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar may not have been destined to become Nigeria’s President.

“There is my former principal who believes that he is going to win,” Bwala said during Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, dismissing the chances of Atiku and other opposition coalition leaders like Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi to defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027.

“In all honesty, I have expressed my opinion that it may never have been destined by God for him to be a president in Nigeria because he has done everything he needs to do to be president and he did not win the presidency.

“2023 was the biggest opportunity that my former principal Atiku Abubakar had. He will never have that kind of privilege again,” he said.

Interestingly, Bwala served as Atiku’s campaign spokesperson during the 2023 election but later switched his allegiance to Tinubu.

Opposition has no alternative policies

Opposition leaders recently agreed to use the African Democratic Party as the platform for their coalition to remove Tinubu, whom they accused of leading the country backward.

However, Bwala dismissed their efforts, saying they have failed to provide alternative policies that could convince Nigerians to support them.

“What I still find intriguing is that this coalition of internally displaced politicians have not been able to summon the courage and come up with alternative facts, alternative policies or alternative programmes.

“Throughout the interview you had with Peter Obi, what I find is that he has not been able to counter or to disagree in the real sense of the word with the policies that we are implementing,” he said.

Coalition will scatter in six months

Bwala further downplayed the threat posed by the opposition coalition to Tinubu’s presidency, predicting that the coalition would not last beyond six months.

He stated that internal disputes over who would emerge as the presidential candidate under the ADC would break up the coalition, ultimately benefiting Tinubu in 2027.

“All this fantasy of coalition, we all know that once there is a phenomenon like that we are going to have a good two to three weeks of all these romanticizing of ‘we have ideas, we can do this’.

“But one of them, his name is Datti (Baba-Ahmed) already sensed the danger that is ahead for them and he said that the problem of theis coalition will be who will be the president because right now, I’m quoting him, ‘everybody wants to be the president’.

“After one month when they sit down, I am telling you on my own honour, in the next six months, that coalition thing will not even be a conversation, they will scatter,” Bwala added.