How President Tinubu is Stabilizing Nigeria Educational Calendar
By Bamidele Atoyebi
Something unusual is happening in Nigeria’s academic space a silent wave of salary arrears is being paid out to university lecturers, some of whom left the system years ago with no hope of ever being remembered.
A former ASUU member, known on social media as @Nig_Farmer, recently shared a lighthearted tweet: he needed money to renew a webpage when an unexpected credit alert landed in his account salary arrears from four years ago, despite the fact that he left the civil service three years prior. His reaction was tongue-in-cheek but pointed:
“Tinubu on your Mandate!!!”
Yet beyond the sarcasm lies a compelling story of unannounced reform and institutional accountability. Across the country, former and current university lecturers are confirming similar alerts. Some report payments for arrears owed since 2018. These testimonies are not isolated. From the South East to the North Central, staff members who were once casualties of protracted government-union disputes are now finding resolution not through another strike, but through settlement. This wave of settlements, though under-publicized, is unprecedented in recent Nigerian history.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has had a long, bitter history with successive Nigerian governments. Agreements signed after negotiations were often shelved indefinitely. Salaries were withheld during industrial actions. Arrears accumulated not just due to fiscal delays, but as a form of punishment. In many cases, lecturers resumed work without pay, hopeful that someday the system would remember them. But the system didn’t until now.
Though the payments are being processed silently, their ripple effect is loud. What we are seeing is not mere disbursement, but a shift in administrative ethos one that values record-keeping, fiscal responsibility, and closure. For the first time in years, federal systems are tracing arrears back to their origin and settling them, without requiring further agitation. This change signals a move away from Nigeria’s “selective memory” in public finance management. It is worth noting that these arrears span across multiple administrations, yet it is under the Tinubu administration with a renewed drive for reform and cleanup that they are finally being paid. This shows not just goodwill, but a commitment to clearing the debris of past failures.
It should also be on record that since the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there has never been any report of ASUU strikes a major departure from the status quo that has long disrupted Nigeria’s academic calendar. Students now finish their courses within the stipulated duration. If a discipline is a four-year program, students graduate in four years not after five or six years caused by strike-induced delays. President Tinubu is keeping to his promise: students are fully in school, and no one has been sent home due to ASUU strikes. Teachers and lecturers are being paid as and when due. There is no pressing need for them to go on strike thereby stabilising the academic calendar and restoring credibility to Nigeria’s tertiary education timeline.
In a democracy, accountability is not measured only by investigations and press statements, but by the state’s ability to remember its promises and fulfill them, even belatedly. When a government pays arrears to someone who has left the system, it sends a message: “We owe you. And we pay what we owe.” That message rebuilds trust not just with unions, but with the citizens watching.
This development should not stop at ASUU. Other sectors with unresolved salary backlogs from resident doctors to local government workers deserve the same justice. The same system that tracked and credited former lecturers can be scaled and replicated. For this reason, the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, and the Budget Office must publish a comprehensive report detailing how much has been paid in ASUU arrears so far, how beneficiaries were verified, and what safeguards are in place to prevent recurrence. This transparency will not only validate the effort but will also solidify the administration’s commitment to fair and responsible governance.
While critics often focus on what hasn’t worked, this moment presents an opportunity to highlight what is quietly being repaired. For once, Nigerians are not being asked to protest or beg. The system is working even if slowly, even if imperfectly. In the world of policy, real change is rarely dramatic. It shows up in systems that start to function, in records that are reconciled, in debts that are paid without a hashtag war. That is what accountability looks like not always televised, but always felt.
And for thousands of ASUU members past and present it’s beginning to feel real.
Bamidele Atoyebi, the Convenor of the BAT Ideological Group, engages in accountability and policy monitoring while also serving as a social worker, criminologist, maritime administrator, and philanthropist. He sent this message from Abuja.
