We Hold Your Brief
Dear counsel, I think your response will settle this matter permanently. During every public holiday, I always have a running battle with my employer. As the Personnel and Human Resource Manager, it is my responsibility to ensure that our staff report to work at the right time. But during the last public holidays that included Sallah and Independence Day, some of our staff did not come to work, and the management is laying the blame on me. I was forced to query the staff that failed to show up for work, and they claimed that it was public holiday, and that they would take legal action, if any deductions were made from their salary on account of this.
Please, what is your advice on this? The company’s position is that they could only grant two days of public holiday and not three days as claimed by the staff.
G. U. Lagos
Dear G.U., The issue of what constitutes a public holiday in Nigeria is succinctly stated and clearly defined by statute. Although sometimes the Federal Government through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, extends certain public holidays to week days, if they fall on weekends. Therefore, when a public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the government may declare the following Monday a public holiday. However, the Holidays Act is in Chapter 378 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria provides thus:
Section 2(1) ‘In addition to days mentioned in the Schedule to this Act, the President may by public notice appoint a special day to be kept as a public holiday either throughout Nigeria or in any part thereof, and any day so appointed shall be kept as a public holiday.’
Section 4 also states that ‘No person shall be compellable to do any act on a day appointed by or under the provisions of this Act to be kept as a public holiday which he would not be compellable to do on a Sunday.’
However, Section 5(a) States that ‘if two days appointed as public holidays fall successively on a Friday and a Saturday, only the Friday concerned and no additional day in lieu of that Saturday shall be kept as a public holiday.’ Also (d) states that ‘if two days appointed as public holidays fall successively on a Sunday and a Monday, only the Monday concerned and no additional day in lieu of that Sunday shall be kept as a public holiday.’
These days are specifically stated in the Act as Public Holidays under the Schedule: 1. New Year's Day
2. Good Friday 3. Easter Monday 4. Workers' Day (1st May). 5. National Day (1st October). 6. Christmas Day 7. Such day as the Minister may declare to be a public holiday in celebration of the Muslim festival of Id el Fitr. 8. Such day as the Minister may declare to be a public holiday in celebration of the Muslim festival of Id el Kabir. 9. Such day as the Minister may declare to be a public holiday in celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammed (Id el Maulud).
Your staff, in my opinion, were therefore, entitled to those days as public holidays, having been so declared by the Federal Government by public notice. You should in my view persuade your management to understand this.