The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday to seek increased presidential support in addressing the ongoing demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), who have threatened to go on strike.
ASUU had suspended a two-week warning strike in late October 2025, giving the Federal Government one-month window to demonstrate commitment to resolving outstanding matters related to funding, salary arrears, and University revitalization.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after the closed-door meeting, Dr. Alausa said President Tinubu does not want any further strike by ASUU and is doing everything possible to resolve all pending issues that will strengthen the country’s education system.
According to him, ” We have met literally all their requirements. Now, we have gone back to the negotiation table.
“We will resolve this. And part of my visit today, here, is also to explain where we are with the ASUU strike to Mr. President and to extract more commitment, more concession from Mr. President.”
The Education Minister said “The President has mandated us that he doesn’t want ASUU to go on strike. And we are doing everything humanly possible to ensure that our students stay in school. The last strike they went on for four, five, or six days was not really needed. We are talking to them.”
Minister Alausa explained that his leadership is taking advantage of President Tinubu’s genuine love for education to massively improve the sector.
”His (President’s) fervent and benevolent love for education and human capital. And when you talk about human capital, you are talking about health, education, and social protection. Beyond what our President is doing, in expanding, creating opportunities across the country, building an economy.”
The Education Minister also noted that he was proud that Nigerians are seeing what the President is doing to improve the country’s economy
beginning with the removal of subsidy, stabilization of foreign exchange, and extensive infrastructure projects going across the country.
”We have new tax bills. Our GDP is growing. The last quarter, our GDP is at 4.23%. Nigeria is back,” he added.
Minister Alausa also said that the Federal Government was taking deliberate steps to resolve the issues cutting across Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education.
”We had one negotiating committee dealing with Universities, ASU. We had another one dealing with Polytechnic, ASU. And we had another one dealing with Colleges of Education, COESU.
”They were not talking to one another. What we have done now, is expand one single committee called Aladji Ayala Ahmed Federal Government Negotiating Committee with tertiary institutions. They are dealing with both academic and non-academic unions.
“As I am talking to you, they are talking to Polytechnic. The same committee is talking to the Polytechnics. They are talking to the Colleges of Education as well as ASUU. Both academic and non-academic unions. There’s no ultimatum.
”I just spoke to the President of ASUU yesterday. I am on first-line call today. Everything is calm. And they all understand. This is a listening government. We would resolve all their problems. And we would resolve significant parts of their problems,” the Minister said.
The Minister also spoke about other interventions by the Ministry in tackling issues of accountability in Nigerian Universities and a later detention to other tertiary institutions.
Read excerpts below:
“This is what this government is all about. Government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
”It’s about deepening the governance and transparency process in our country. And in the past 26 months, you’ve seen that played out.
”In 26 months, the achievements that we continue to make in an accretive manner, it’s mind-blowing. We’ve seen the light now. It’s not even at the end of the tunnel. I can continue to tell you what the President has done over and over in terms of the significant, massive progress that we’ve made.
”Now, let me go to your questions about what my drive is. I drive as a minister of education to deepen transparency.
”Transparency and governance. Because we’re running an evidence-based government now. We need data, like what the President will say. If you don’t have data, it’s like you’re flying blind.
”We need data to really look at where the problems are as you intervene. How do I monitor my outcomes?
”Are my interventions working? With what we launched today, the Federal Tertiary Institution Governance and Transparency Dashboard.
”We have all our public tertiary institutions, universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, receiving almost 100% federal government funding.
”We have to hold them accountable. The Federal Ministry of Education today is playing its oversight role on our tertiary institutions actively.
”We have now mandated them to report data on student enrollment, the amount of budgetary… …they get for personnel, capital, and a recurrent budget.
”The NERF Fund, the Tertiary Fund Intervention, both direct and indirect, the intervention from NERF Fund as well, the money they’re collecting from NERF Fund, as well as endowment and their grant, both local and international grant.
”These are now publicly available information. We’re doing it… We’re doing it… …to accomplish several things. Improve transparencies, governance, and then bring back our tertiary institutions, more so our universities, to where they were before 30 years ago, 40 years ago, where several Nigerian universities are competing globally, where Nigerian universities are part of the first top 100 universities in the world.
”You need all this data. You need people to sit in the comfort of their room to look at, to look, to go to the university’s website, or the Federal Ministry of Education website to see this data.
”We have launched the transparency… The Federal Tertiary Institution Governance and Transparency Portal is now publicly available.
”We started with the Federal Tertiary Institution. We’re going to move it to all tertiary institutions in the country, state universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, as well as private universities.
”We will enforce the reporting requirement using our regulatory bodies, NUC, the National Board for Technical Education, as well as the National Commission of Colleges of Education.
“The other thing we did today, beyond launching the transparency portal, it’s also to continue our agenda to enhance and deepen governance in our tertiary institutions.
”We have launched the Transparency Portal. It’s also to continue our agenda to enhance and deepen governance in our tertiary institutions.
”We have launched the Transparency Portal. We’ve launched the Transparency Portal. Yes. We invited the Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement, Dr. Ade Poweli Adedokun to come and meet with all the heads of our tertiary institutions to clearly lay down the requirements of the Burea of Public Procurement (BPP) and ensure they comply fully, efficiently, and effectively with our public procurement rules.
”That is deepening our governance and transparency processes,” Alausa said.
