A former Special Adviser to the late President Umar Yar’Adua on Media and Publicity, Olusegun Adeniyi, has bemoaned the exclusion of the informal sector in Nigeria’s labour laws.
Speaking at the lecture to mark the new Legal Year 2024/2025 of the National Industrial Court in Abuja titled: “Is there Justice for Workers in Nigeria?” Adeniyi said Nigeria’s labour justice is designed more for the formal sector.
He said the anomaly can be redressed by the instrumentality of law and policies, especially one mandating that at least 75 per cent of the labour justice standard applicable to the formal sector also be made applicable to the informal sector.
He said such provisions could address issues like unwritten contract agreements regarding wages, hours of work, and other indices of labour justice enjoyed by the formal sector.
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He said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) ‘Nigeria Labour Force Survey of the first quarter of 2023 shows that 92.6 per cent of workers in Nigeria were in informal employment, which if the agricultural sector is excluded, will still be 89.4 per cent of people in informal employment.
“These are some of the issues that should concern the National Assembly whose members seem obsessed with where and how Mr Bobrisky was sleeping when serving his jail term,” he said.
Continuing, he said: “To enthrone labour justice, there is need for effective enforcement of labour laws. But it is important to also note that labour laws in Nigeria are complex and with outdated provisions that make their interpretation and application challenging.
“This complexity has often led to unpredictable judgments and uncertainty in labour relations and justice.
“There is therefore an urgent need to align these laws with current realities and international labour standards.”
He advocated the jurisdiction of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria on some issues pertaining to workers like contractual agreements and original jurisdiction in matters of compensation for injury or disease and wrongful dismissal.
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