CDWR Backs ASUU Strike; Calls for Reinstatement of Victimised Officials

The Campaign for Democratic and Workers' Rights (CDWR) has declared its support for the ongoing industrial strike by lecturers at Lagos State-owned universities, backing their push for full implementation and domestication of the December 2025 ASUU-Federal Government agreement, including the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA).

The strike was embarked upon after the expiration of a strike notice and deadline issued by the Lagos State-owned universities' Joint Campus Group of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the Lagos State Government, which lapsed on September 10, 2026.

In a statement signed by its National Chairman, Comrade Rufus Olusesan, and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Chinedu Bosah, CDWR said lecturers embarked on the strike because the Lagos State Government refused to engage them in any meaningful discussion, including refusing to implement the 2025 agreement. The group blamed the state government squarely for the strike and the resulting disruption of academic activities at Lagos State University (LASU), Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUSTECH), and Lagos State University of Education (LASUED).

"It is a fact that Lagos State Government has enough resources to meet and implement the agreement including funding education adequately to guarantee free and quality education for all. What is militating against this social responsibility is the neo-liberal agenda that relegates social services to the background and open them to commercialisation and private interest," the group stated.

CDWR demanded adequate funding of social welfare programmes, including education, healthcare, and housing, to meet the needs of all Lagos residents, arguing that if Lagos were a country, it would rank as Africa's eighth-largest economy, yet has "very little to show for it" in terms of public service delivery.

The group appealed to students, parents, and the general public to actively support the lecturers' struggle in order to pressure the state government into meeting their demands. It also called on the striking lecturers themselves to make the strike an active one, holding a programme of activities including protests, rallies, and press conferences as a means of rallying and mobilising public support to save public education.

Beyond the core demand for agreement implementation, CDWR's statement also included a call for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of ASUU-LASU executives it said had been victimised by the university management and the state government for the past seven years, a longstanding grievance the group tied directly to the current dispute.

CDWR further called on the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and other pro-labour organisations to actively support the strike and the broader struggle to, in its words, save public education from collapse.

The Lagos strike, which followed ASUU's decision to shut down LASU, LASUED, and LASUSTECH indefinitely over non-implementation of the 2025 agreement, adds to a broader wave of similar disputes affecting state-owned tertiary institutions across Nigeria throughout 2026. Comparable strikes tied to the same 2025 FGN-ASUU agreement have recently disrupted academic activities at institutions in Nasarawa, Imo, Plateau, and Ondo states, with resolution timelines varying considerably depending on how quickly individual state governments have moved to engage union leadership.

For Lagos, a state CDWR argues possesses more than sufficient resources to resolve the dispute swiftly, the group's intervention adds further pressure on the Sanwo-Olu administration to engage directly with ASUU's Joint Campus Group, even as the strike continues to disrupt academic activities at three of the state's public universities with no confirmed resumption date at the time of this report.