Observing Unlawful Public Holidays By Kadode Adebiyi

It doesn’t matter whether it is for a religious celebration (even when we don’t practice such religion) or for our National Day (such as the one celebrated on October 1) or even the ones certain groups do not qualify to observe (I have seen non-teaching adults take May 27 Children’s Day off). It could even be one of those more political ones, such as June 12, declared in some south-west states and May 29 Democracy Day (whatever that means). It doesn’t matter what a public holiday is declared for, Nigerians just love it. However, there are also the very ridiculous types of public holiday. One of such is the kind often declared by the late Garrison Commander of Oyo State and the acclaimed strong man of Oyo politics, Lamidi Adedibu, whenever he was up to a political mischief in Oyo State. Compliance then was a matter of whether one wanted to cross the path of his loyalists and thugs, mainly from the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW). Another of such was declared by former governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, who took the battle to retain his job to an unenviable height by declaring a two-day public holiday. Even the federal government was not left out of this ridiculousness when it declared a similarly bizarre three-day holiday for workers in the Federal Capital Territory during when Abuja hosted the World Economic Forum for Africa. More recently, we’ve witnessed public holidays declared for prayers or the birthday or burial of a politician. In fact, we’ve witnessed public holidays declared for reasons even more mundane than those – election victories at the tribunal, et al. Some voices were raised recently about the appropriateness of declaring the new Islamic calendar year a public holiday, after all the beginning of a new Grecian calendar year, January 1, is observed as public holiday. I trust Nigerians; we won’t have a problem with that! However, has anyone taken time out to point out the illegality in arbitrary declaration of working days as public holidays? Yes, Section 2 (subsections 1 & 2) of the Public Holidays Act grants the president and state governors the power to declare public holidays. Nevertheless, since democracy was restored in 1999, frivolous work-free days inspired by political sentiments and calculations have been the hallmark of successive administrations both at federal and state levels. While some of these free days are one-off, some have found their way into our national calendar of annual holidays. May 29 is celebrated nationwide as Democracy Day, simply because it was the day the military administration of Gen Abdusalam Abubakar handed over power to the democratically elected Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. This might have kick-started the craze. The notion of public holiday has so been abused that aspects of the Public Holidays Act are violated with reckless abandon. Section 5, being the most affected, states the following: “(a) 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. (b) if any day appointed to be a public holiday falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, only the Saturday or Sunday concerned and no other day in lieu of either of such days shall be kept as a public holiday. (c) if two days appointed as public holidays fall successively on a Saturday and Sunday, only the Saturday and Sunday concerned and no additional day or days in lieu of the Saturday and Sunday shall be kept as public holidays; and (d) 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.” So you see that judging by the above provisions, last Monday’s public holiday (and many more observed through the year) was an illegality. Apart from violating the law, these phony days off paralyze socio-economic activities, in addition to the billions of naira worth of man-hours lost to observing them. Nigeria’s problems have never been a lack of enabling laws. The problem is our inability to play by the rules. I don’t know if ignorance of the provisions of this law leads the federal government to violating it or it’s just a matter of blatant disregard. All I know is that it would cost close to nothing to amend the Public Holidays Act for Nigerians to legitimately enjoy the excess days off. For now, they remain unlawful.]]>