Ondo State, Its Universities and the Cost of Broken Commitments.
Friday Perspective.
By Wale Obanigba, Esq.
Friday, August 14, 2026
There is a difference between an industrial dispute and a governance failure. When workers down tools because an institution cannot meet its obligations, the immediate issue may be labour-related. But when government enters into an agreement, participates in negotiations and subsequently fails to implement the commitments arising from that process, the matter becomes one of governance, credibility and public trust.
That is the context in which the renewed crisis in Ondo State’s university system should be examined.
The initial industrial action at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) was essentially about unpaid salary arrears and other financial obligations owed by the institution. Following intervention, the Ondo State Government approved ₦1.2 billion to address part of the arrears. The intervention was welcome, although it reportedly covered only two months and did not clear the entire outstanding obligation.
My earlier intervention on the AAUA crisis was informed by the need for government to urgently address the situation. The subsequent release demonstrated that the concerns were legitimate and deserved attention.
But the present dispute is different. The renewed action is connected to the non-implementation of the 2025 Federal Government-ASUU Agreement. According to the national leadership of ASUU, only five states remain outstanding in fully implementing the agreement, and Ondo State is one of them.
More significantly, none of Ondo State’s three state-owned universities, AAUA, Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (OAUSTECH), and Ondo State University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), has benefited from the agreement.
That should concern the government. The 2025 negotiations were not exclusively a federal affair. Representatives of state-owned and private universities participated in the negotiating process. The resulting agreement was therefore intended to address broader issues affecting university education and the welfare of all staff.
If most states have moved towards implementation while Ondo remains among the five outstanding states, government owes the people a clear explanation.
The issue cannot simply be reduced to whether government has money. Every government faces competing demands. Healthcare, infrastructure, security, education and social services all require resources. But budgeting is ultimately about choices, and those choices reveal the priorities of government.
More importantly, the consequences of non-implementation are already becoming visible.
Professor Olugbenga Oke-Samuel of AAUA recently disclosed that experienced academics have been leaving the university for institutions where the agreement has been implemented. His description of AAUA as becoming a “training ground” for other universities should alarm every stakeholder in Ondo State.
A university does not only lose an employee when an experienced academic leaves; it loses institutional memory, research capacity, mentorship, academic leadership and years of accumulated intellectual capital. Buildings can be constructed. Laboratories can be equipped. But experienced academics cannot be produced overnight.
A broader question about the State’s university policy is, what is the value of establishing or expanding universities if the State cannot adequately sustain the institutions already in existence?
Ondo State needs physical infrastructure, but it also needs human infrastructure. Universities are human-capital institutions. They produce the doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, scientists, administrators and other professionals required to develop the State.
Investment in higher education should therefore not be treated simply as recurrent expenditure. It is an investment in the productive capacity and future competitiveness of the State.
The possibility of UNIMED joining the industrial action, following AAUA and OAUSTECH, should consequently be treated as a red alert rather than another routine labour dispute. If all three state-owned universities are affected, it would be difficult to dismiss the problem as an isolated institutional failure.
The government should therefore act before the crisis deepens.
First, it should urgently engage ASUU and the managements of the affected universities to establish the precise obligations arising from the 2025 agreement and develop a clear, realistic and time-bound implementation plan.
Second, if immediate full implementation is financially difficult, government should be transparent about the constraints and negotiate a credible phased arrangement with the unions. What should not continue is uncertainty.
Third, Ondo State needs a sustainable university funding framework that provides for regular salaries, staff welfare, research, accreditation, infrastructure and the retention of experienced academics. Emergency interventions such as the ₦1.2 billion AAUA release are useful, but they cannot substitute for predictable institutional funding.
Finally, government should communicate clearly with citizens about what has been paid, what remains outstanding and what steps are being taken to resolve the crisis. Public confidence is strengthened when government provides facts rather than leaving citizens to speculate.
The issue is therefore fundamentally larger than ASUU. It is about whether commitments made by government are credible.
An agreement freely entered into creates expectations. It should not require prolonged industrial action before government takes steps towards implementation. Where genuine fiscal constraints exist, government should negotiate openly rather than allow uncertainty to become the operating principle.
The cost of failing to honour such commitments may not immediately appear in the State’s financial statements. It appears in lecturers who leave, students who lose valuable academic time, research projects that stall and institutions that gradually lose their competitive standing.
That is the hidden cost of broken commitments.
Ondo State cannot afford to allow its universities to deteriorate while simultaneously expecting them to produce the human capital required to transform the State.
The immediate priority should be to resolve the industrial dispute. But the longer-term objective must be to restore confidence in the State’s university system through sustainable funding and credible commitments.
A government that establishes universities must do more than provide buildings. It must fund them, sustain them and protect the human capital that makes them universities.
Wale Obanigba is a legal practitioner writing from Akure.