ASUU is threatening to strike again, and a new allowance now treats internet access as a real academic cost. Both point to the same underlying story.
On September 5, 2026, ASUU's National Executive Council met at the University of Abuja and threatened to reactivate its suspended nationwide strike without further notice. The union's president, Professor Christopher Piwuna, cited incomplete implementation of a December 2025 agreement with the federal government, months of withheld salaries at some institutions, and unremitted deductions. This wasn't just a national-level threat either. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka's ASUU branch struck briefly in early September over an incomplete salary payment, suspending action once the payment was made in full.
The December 2025 FG-ASUU agreement that's now at the center of this dispute includes something worth sitting with: a Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance, covering costs like journal publications, conference attendance, books, and internet access. Government and university unions have effectively agreed that internet access belongs in the same category as academic books and journals: a real, necessary cost of doing the work of a university, not an optional extra.
That's a striking admission from the top of the system, even as the agreement's actual implementation is the exact thing being disputed right now.
Separately, some universities have raised their own charges. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka approved a 60% increase in sundry charges for the 2025/2026 session, down from an initially proposed 100% increase. On the support side, Nigeria's student loan program, NELFUND, reported disbursing 355.87 billion naira as of early September 2026, with 1.66 million applications processed since the portal opened in May 2024, split between institutional payments and direct student upkeep. Private university students remain outside NELFUND's coverage for now, though the government has signaled plans to eventually extend it.
We don't touch tuition, salaries, or loan disbursement. But the CATA allowance's own framing makes our point for us: internet access is a real academic cost, the same category as books and journal access, not a personal convenience. For students whose institutions haven't caught up to that idea yet, or who fall outside programs like NELFUND entirely, donor-funded data closes exactly that gap.
This post is based on public reporting as of September 2026, including ASUU's own statements, NELFUND's published disbursement report, and coverage of university fee changes. The status of the ASUU dispute may change, and we'll update this post if anything material shifts.