University is the fortress of knowledge for building future leaders. Regrettably, public universities in Nigeria are
facing a lot of challenges. One such challenge is the incessant strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union
of Universities (ASUU). The root causes of the ASUU strike include inadequate funding of public universities,
imposition of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in federal universities, none
release of earned academic allowance to lecturers, poor remuneration, the proliferation of universities particularly
by state government without adequate funding of existing ones and the failure of the federal government to
implement agreement entered to ASUU. The failure of the government to address these issues prompts ASUU to
embark on series of industrial actions. Strike actions often times bring about disruption in an institution’s academic
calendar. Once there is strike action, it gives room for calendar adjustment which will inevitably affect the smooth
running of educational program in the country. This paper therefore assessed the impact of strike actions on
academic performance: It maintains that the strike by academic unions have had a devastating effect on Nigeria‘s
educational system and by extension their academic performance. Consequently, the government should set up
special grants to fund public universities, while academic staff should explore other means to press home their
demands rather than embark on strike actions always.