The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has met with Senate President Ahmad Lawan on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) enrolment.

Its National President Prof Biodun Ogunyemi said ASUU and the Senate agreed that the union should complete its payroll model if it would not use the one designed by the Federal Government.

The IPPIS enrolment was to begin Monday in all Federal universities and colleges of education.

Despite the readiness of other unions such as the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) to key into the government payroll system, IPPIS officials from Abuja did not show up.

Speaking with The Nation on phone, Ogunyemi said ASUU presented its campus-wide payroll system to Lawan.

He said: “We agreed that we should continue what we have done; the alternative is what we are working on. We showed them the alternative and, hopefully, they would see reasons and it would be accepted.”

The ASUU president said no new date had been set for a follow-up meeting with Lawan.

Condemning IPPIS, Ogunyemi said it would return universities to the military era, which he said was characterised by the use of force.

He added that the University Miscellaneous Provisional Amendment Act of 2003 (also called the Universities Autonomy Act No. 1, 2007) was enacted to liberate the universities from the bureaucracy of the civil service and to enable the council to exercise its powers and functions without undue external interference or influence.