Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the Academic Staff Union of Universities stampeded the government into signing the 2009 agreement.
The failure to implement the agreement to the letters has been a source of incessant strikes by the teachers.
The lecturers again on Sunday declared a trade dispute with the government over the failure to implement the agreement.
Speaking at the presentation of a book: “I am Kagara, I Weave the Sands of Sahara,” at the University of Ibadan on Thursday, Obasanjo said the government allowed itself to be pushed into signing the agreement without full consultation within government.
He, however, said regardless of that, the government was bound to implement whatever agreement reached with the workers’ unions.
He said: “Government allowed itself to be stampeded into signing the agreement, particularly when one group or the other withdraws their service and go on strike.
“After the agreement has been signed, without full consultation within government, implementation becomes an issue.
“But an agreement is an agreement.
“Whoever the agent is that signed that agreement on your behalf, you are bound by it.
“You may now have to renegotiate to have a new agreement, but the agreement earlier signed remains an agreement.
“The university teachers go on strike, there is an agreement; doctors go on strike, there will be a special agreement.
“And when the university teachers see that the agreement reached with the doctors is different from theirs, they again go on strike and this is bad for our economy.
“The way we are going about spending all our revenue to pay overhead, we will not develop.
“And we will have ourselves to blame.
“Ninety per cent of revenue is used to pay overhead, allowances, salaries and not much is left for capital development.
“In a situation like that, we have to rethink.”
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