The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has strongly condemned the Federal Government’s threat to implement the “No Work, No Pay” policy against members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) currently on a two-week warning strike.
In a statement issued on Monday, NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, described the threat as a form of intimidation and warned that such action would not solve the longstanding crisis in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions. Instead, he urged the government to honour its commitments and invest meaningfully in public education.
According to Ajaero, ASUU’s strike is not an act of defiance but a legitimate reaction to years of government neglect, broken promises, and chronic underfunding of public universities.
“The NLC is deeply concerned by the persistent crisis in Nigeria’s public education system, marked by chronic underfunding and the government’s failure to honour agreements reached with university lecturers and workers,” Ajaero stated.
He added that the current warning strike was triggered by the Federal Government’s continued refusal to implement agreements it voluntarily signed with ASUU, especially on issues of funding, university autonomy, and conditions of service.
“Rather than engage the union in meaningful dialogue, the government has resorted to the unproductive and misleading threat of ‘No Work, No Pay.’ The breach of contract lies with the state, not the scholars,” the NLC President said.
Ajaero argued that university lecturers want to work but cannot continue under poor conditions and in a system that ignores their sacrifices. He said the principle should not be “No Work, No Pay” but rather “No Pay, No Work.”
“This struggle goes beyond a normal labour dispute. It speaks to a bigger issue of social injustice — the deliberate neglect of public education while the children of the elite attend private schools locally and abroad,” he said.
Ajaero decried the growing inequality in Nigeria’s education system, where children of working-class families are left in dilapidated classrooms with little or no resources, while the rich enjoy well-funded private education. According to him, this deepens the country’s social divide and denies millions of young Nigerians a fair chance at a better future.
“The children of workers and the poor are left with an underfunded, demoralised system, perpetuating inequality and limiting social mobility. Quality education must not be a privilege for a few but a right for all,” Ajaero said.
He noted that Nigeria cannot afford to treat education as an afterthought, especially in a country where over 10 million children are already out of school and thousands of university students face uncertainty due to strikes and unstable academic calendars.
In a strong show of support, the NLC declared full solidarity with ASUU and other unions in the tertiary education sector. It warned that if the government continues to ignore the crisis, the entire labour movement may be forced to take stronger action to protect public education and workers’ rights.
“This is a national emergency, and we cannot continue to watch as public universities collapse under neglect,” Ajaero concluded.
The NLC’s position adds pressure on the Federal Government to return to the negotiation table and honour its agreements to avoid a full-scale strike that could once again disrupt academic activities across the country.
The ASUU warning strike is expected to continue unless the government addresses the union’s demands within the two-week period.
