ASUU Suspends Plateau Varsity Strike After Govt Deal

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Plateau State University (PLASU) chapter, has suspended its total and indefinite strike following an agreement reached with the Plateau State Government, bringing an end to a dispute that had paralysed academic activities at the institution for roughly three weeks.

The decision was taken on Tuesday at an Emergency Congress Meeting of the union held in Jos, the Plateau State capital, where members reviewed the issues that had originally led to the declaration of the strike on August 26, 2026. In a statement signed by the Chairperson of the university's ASUU chapter, Dr Vincent Choji, and the Secretary, Dr Lomka Iliya Kopdiya, the union said the negotiation teams of the state government and the union had reached what it described as a "reasonable conclusion" on the demands that had prompted the industrial action.

According to the union, the agreement covers the commencement of the Contributory Pension Scheme for university staff, full implementation of the 2025 Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN)-ASUU Agreement, and payment of outstanding arrears with effect from January 2026. The statement said other aspects of the agreement covered the provision of safe and secure staff quarters, construction of trenches around the university's perimeter fence, and an end to what the union had previously described as intimidation of its leadership by the university administration.

The original strike, which brought academic activities at PLASU to a complete halt, had been declared after the union's Congress concluded that the substance of its demands across six specific items had not been satisfactorily addressed by the university administration. Those six items included the pension scheme, full agreement implementation, arrears payment, secure staff accommodation, perimeter fence trenches, and an end to alleged intimidation of union officials, alongside a separate demand for payment of 22 months' arrears tied to the 25 and 35 per cent wage award.

The industrial action had followed the expiration of a 14-day ultimatum the union issued on August 11, 2026, after which ASUU's National Executive Council granted approval for the Plateau chapter to proceed with the strike. The resulting shutdown suspended teaching, research, and other academic activities at the institution, leaving students without a fixed resumption date for several weeks.

With the latest round of negotiations now concluded, the union said the decision to suspend the strike was reached after Congress reviewed the outcome of talks and determined that the parties had arrived at a satisfactory resolution on the outstanding demands. The suspension of the industrial action takes effect from midnight on September 16, 2026, with members of ASUU at Plateau State University directed to resume academic activities from that point onward.

The resolution of the PLASU dispute adds to a broader, ongoing pattern of ASUU-related industrial disputes at state-owned universities across Nigeria throughout 2026, many of them tied to varying paces of implementation of the 2025 FGN-ASUU agreement at the state level. Similar disputes have recently affected institutions including Nasarawa State University, Keffi; Imo State University, Owerri; and, most recently, universities in Lagos State, where ASUU has separately declared an indefinite strike affecting Lagos-owned institutions. In some of these cases, resolution has come relatively quickly once state governments moved to directly engage union leadership, as appears to be the case with Plateau's negotiated settlement.

For PLASU students, the suspension of the strike offers a pathway back to the classroom after weeks of disrupted academic activities, though the timeline for resuming lectures, postgraduate supervision, and any suspended examinations will likely depend on how quickly the university administration and union can coordinate a return to normal operations. The agreement's implementation, particularly the pension scheme commencement and arrears payment, will also be closely watched by both staff and students as an indicator of whether the negotiated settlement holds over the coming months.