Lecturers at Kaduna State University (KASU), under the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have commenced a two-week warning strike over unresolved issues concerning salaries, allowances, university autonomy and other conditions of service.

The decision was reached on Thursday, August 27, after an emergency meeting of the ASUU-KASU chapter attended by hundreds of academic staff, following the expiration of the two-week ultimatum earlier issued to the Kaduna State Government and the university authorities.

The union had issued the ultimatum on August 12, demanding action on the implementation and domestication of the 2025 Federal Government-ASUU agreement and other outstanding welfare issues.

In a statement released after its meeting, the union said it had resolved to embark on the warning strike and would review the situation after two weeks. It warned that if no meaningful progress was made by then, it could move to shut down the university completely.

Among the issues still unresolved are the implementation of the 25–35 per cent salary adjustment agreement, university autonomy, promotion arrears, death benefits, group life insurance, wage awards and pension remittances, among others.

ASUU-KASU had also raised concerns over what it described as the departure of more than 200 professors and other academic staff from the institution, attributing the development to poor conditions of service and the failure to implement the 2025 agreement.

However, the Kaduna State Government and KASU management disputed the scale and interpretation of the alleged mass exodus. The government said 59 lecturers left the university between January 2024 and August 2026, while KASU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Abdullahi Musa, described movement of staff between universities as a normal phenomenon and rejected the suggestion that it was evidence of poor working conditions at the institution.

In an effort to prevent the industrial action, the Kaduna State Government approved the immediate payment of ₦300 million as Earned Academic Allowance to KASU academic staff and constituted a nine-member committee to negotiate with ASUU-KASU and other university-based unions over their outstanding demands.

The government had also urged the union to embrace dialogue, arguing that industrial action should be treated as a last resort. ASUU-KASU, for its part, had earlier indicated that it preferred negotiation and was willing to engage with the government to resolve the crisis.

Despite those efforts, the union proceeded with the two-week warning strike after concluding that its major demands had not been sufficiently addressed.

As of Friday, the ASUU-KASU leadership was still meeting with the negotiation committee established by the state government in another attempt to resolve the dispute.

Meanwhile, KASU management has appealed to the lecturers to suspend the warning strike and return to dialogue, as the industrial action threatens to disrupt academic activities at the university.

The development has raised fresh concerns among students and stakeholders, particularly over the possibility of a prolonged shutdown if the ongoing negotiations fail to produce an acceptable resolution within the two-week warning period.