Public Holidays in Nigeria. 

By Adebayo Kareem. 

I became aware of the fact that there would be three consecutive days of public merriment in Nigeria from Monday 29 September to Wednesday 1^st October 2008 rather fortuitously. I had forwarded some goods from the UK to Nigeria and had called the shippers to ask why they had not been delivered. The shippers informed me that the items actually arrived in Nigeria on Friday 26 September 2008 and that they were due for Custom & Excise clearing process the following Saturday . He went on to state that his consignment could however not be processed by Custom & Exercise that day because the last Saturday of the month is an ‘Environmental Sanitation’ day and that since this process of enforced sanitation lasts until 12noon, no meaningful business could be conducted that day. I was mollified by the thought that at least the goods were already in Nigeria and that all Custom & Excise procedures ought to be concluded by the following Monday. That was when he dropped the bombshell: there would be public holiday on three consecutive working days, i.e. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week to celebrate the Eid el Fitr and the Independence Day and that in all likelihood, the goods would not be out until Thursday or Friday of the following week. 

I was bemused, concerned even slightly annoyed by this information. Do we have too much holidays in Nigeria? What are the effects of this spate of public holidays on the nation’s productivity, especially on the private sector? What effects do these holidays have on service delivery in the country, especially as it impact on circumstances like I found myself? What impact will this have on international and other contractual businesses where delivery dates are of significant importance? What impact could this have on attracting and retaining Foreign Direct Investment {FDI} to the country? All these questions ran through my mind as I digested the import of the information I was given.  

Perhaps it is pertinent to state from the onset that Nigeria {especially Lagos} is one of the most stressful places to live and work. The public transport system is chaotic and the road network is in perpetual shamble, and since most people travel far to work, the number of hours people travel to and from work is often more than half the number of hours they in fact work in their offices. For example if one lives in Ogba and work in Victoria Island, one is likely to spend about two hours travelling to work and the same back home!. Thus, Nigerians deserve their rest. However, in a competitive global world, there is a need to balance the need to provide leisure for workers and the need to retain competitive edge. 

With the aid of Wikipedia, I compared and contrasted public holidays in Ghana and Nigeria. Ghana, after all, shares the same traits with Nigeria in history, culture, religion, colonial heritage etc. I noticed that whilst Ghana has 11 days designated public holidays, Nigeria has 13. I also noticed, and this is crucial, that although Nigeria designates one day as Eid al Fitr day, two days have in fact been set aside for it. Thus, although we have 13 days designated as public holidays, in practice there are often more days set aside for national merriment. If we add the weekend to these holidays, this is an area where Nigeria can validly say we lead the world!  

I am aware that it is the religious festivals that add to our national holidays. I also appreciate the fact that in a country like ours, where it is neigh impossible to have rational debate on religious matter, it is almost impossible for any government to take any decisive actions to restrict the number of religious holidays in Nigeria. And although the country is meant to be a secular country, we continue to pander to the two main religions and totally disregard the sensibilities of the traditional religionists amongst us. Pray, if the hundreds of other traditional religions in the country insist on having national holidays declared to celebrate their festivals, we will be a country on perpetual holiday and be a true ‘merritocracy’, i.e. a country in perpetual merriment! 

As I have already mentioned, public holidays are mutually beneficial for workers and employers of labour, both public and private sectors. A well-rested worker should be a more productive one. However the length and timing of holidays need to reflect informed thought and seriousness. Holidays are after all, additional costs on businesses and I am certain that excessive public holiday will be a disincentive to attracting and retaining FDI. During public holidays, government offices grind to a halt, causing unquantifiable losses and serious inconvenience to private businesses and individuals. It has been said that Nigerians deserve this high number of public holidays because of the increasing stress faced by Nigerians in their daily life. This assertion is debatable. Staying at home for three days offers only a pyrrhic succour for the people: neither electricity supply nor road network will be transformed by the 2^nd October 2008. In all likelihood the people will return to work on Thursday to face the same old problems. What will benefit the people and will not adversely affect productivity is for the government to put in place adequate and well thought out programmes of Work-Life Balance Initiatives, Flexible Working Arrangements for people etc. This will offer genuine and sustainable succour to the people. Declaring a three days of national merriments will not. Or may be I am just being jealous! 

Adebayo Kareem

Solicitor

Stratford London

Robot  # 1 | 30.09.2008 08:38

There would be three consecutive days of public merriment in Nigeria from Monday 29 September to Wednesday 1st October 2008 rather fortuitously. Do we have too much holidays in Nigeria? W...Read the full article.

Tunde meee  # 2 | 30.09.2008 09:29

Thanks for this thought provoking write up. In as much as I sympathise with you concerning the clearance of your goods which would eventually be done anyway, I think we are not doing too badly considering our circumstances. Lets go through some arithmetic and comparison to developed world: 1. 365 days makes a normal year 2. 52 weeks makes a year= 52 weekends=104 days off a year as weekend. 3. 13 days statutory holidays 4. 104+13=117 5. 365-117=248 6. Nigerian work from 8am-4:00pm=8 hours(ignore the fact that bankers works 7am-10pm in most cases) 7. 248X8=1984 hours per year 8. 1984/52=38.15 hours/week Compared to UK we are just less than 2 hours per week(UK is 40hrs). Considering the stress of getting to work where some have to wake up at 5:00am to get to a work that starts at 8:00am and they don't return home until about 9-10pm despite closing at 4:00pm. This does not occur in any civilised world so our basis of comparison is faulty. I think we should maintain the status quo if we don't want to start witnessing more people dropping dead on the street.

JAGA-JAGA  # 3 | 30.09.2008 10:19

=Tunde meee;275220>Thanks for this thought provoking write up. In as much as I sympathise with you concerning the clearance of your goods which would eventually be done anyway, I think we are not doing too badly considering our circumstances. Lets go through some arithmetic and comparison to developed world: 1. 365 days makes a normal year 2. 52 weeks makes a year= 52 weekends=104 days off a year as weekend. 3. 13 days statutory holidays 4. 104+13=117 5. 365-117=248 6. Nigerian work from 8am-4:00pm=8 hours(ignore the fact that bankers works 7am-10pm in most cases) 7. 248X8=1984 hours per year 8. 1984/52=38.15 hours/week Compared to UK we are just less than 2 hours per week(UK is 40hrs). Considering the stress of getting to work where some have to wake up at 5:00am to get to a work that starts at 8:00am and they don't return home until about 9-10pm despite closing at 4:00pm. This does not occur in any civilised world so our basis of comparison is faulty. I think we should maintain the status quo if we don't want to start witnessing more people dropping dead on the street. Tunde meee, Just to add a caveat to your response: Do we measure productivity in Nigeria? How are you certain that the 38.15 hrs/week you alluded above translates to productive hours? Methinks, only very few individuals are productive in that society called Nigeria as things stand now.

delegiwa  # 4 | 02.10.2008 14:51

=JAGA-JAGA;275233>Tunde meee, Just to add a caveat to your response: Do we measure productivity in Nigeria? How are you certain that the 38.15 hrs/week you alluded above translates to productive hours? Methinks, only very few individuals are productive in that society called Nigeria as things stand now. Jaga2, not everything is as bad as you guys paint it to be in this country. Believe me when I say that A LOT OF PEOPLE do work their ar.ses off and very hard too in this country. I'm sure you've got no data whatosoever to back up your above claims. A public holiday is a public holiday. Q.E.D