It is yet too early to forget that the immediate past yuletide was bleak and dismal for the Nigerian workers. They were thrown into the apparent state of melancholy perhaps because of the deliberate mismanagement of public holidays.
After the close of business on Tuesday, 22 December 2015, what started in the rumour-mill was finally confirmed on the NTA Network news at 9 p.m. – that 23 and 24 December 2015 had been declared public holidays – those Muslim holidays that normally come with the sighting of the moon.
After the Christmas and Boxing-Day holidays, which fell on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 December respectively, the next working day would have been Monday, 28 December. The Federal Government went ahead to shift the Boxing-Day holiday to that Monday.
To the Nigerian worker, that was a Greek gift. Up till now, nobody has offered any explanation for the shift. And because of the clumsiness, Federal and State workers – except Edo State where the workers got their pay before 22 December – did not receive their December salaries until far into January 2016.
These things happen all the time. On 3 May 2010, the Federal Government forced a compulsory public holiday on the entire nation. That year’s Workers’ Day fell on Saturday. Even where everything that needed to be done on the Workers Day – the match-past and the tough speeches – had been accomplished on Saturday, the Federal Government still shifted the empty holiday to Monday. Consequently, the April salaries got shifted far into May – all to the workers’ ordeal.
We also saw in the past, how the power to declare public holidays translated to the power to rig elections and the power to engage in all forms of manipulations and political maneuvers.
One unholy trend is fast developing in Nigeria. Those private Secondary Schools that charge most exorbitant fees have also institutionalized mid-term holidays that sometimes extend beyond an entire week. The motive here is profit maximization and crude exploitation. Students are excited at long holidays without realizing that their parents paid for teaching and learning, not for frivolous holidays. While the school authorities smile to the banks after raking millions of Naira from closing the boarding facilities for an entire week, the disruptive effect on the academic process goes to the students. There are really no alternatives to the traditional mid-term breaks that include only Friday and Monday.
Nothing in the foregoing vitiates the fact that the worker deserves holidays or periods of rest. Essentially, the institution of rest started with God Himself when, at creation, He worked for six days and rested on the seventh day.
Even at our local level, there is the popular mythology constructed around the need for rest. The farmer is forbidden from going to farm on Eken Market Day. Those who defy the order would run into evil spirits and eventually die.
Much as it is important to work, it is also imperative to create room for rest. Rest is so important that it comes in various forms in our lives: The breakfast and lunch breaks are necessary rest periods to replenish spent energy. The evening rest and sleep are designed to get us ready for the following day with renewed vigour and vitality. The weekend rest provides us with the opportunity to take care of personal matters. The annual vacations in various establishments are longer periods of rest and release from the tension of work.
On the issue of public holidays, every nation has days that are of some historical significance to it. On such days, workers are not required to go to work. Some of the public holidays are predetermined and known right from the beginning of the year; while in the course of the year, events that require the declaration of public holidays prop up from time to time.
On the list of countries that have the least public holidays we have Israel, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom, with eight public holidays in the year. Portugal and Malta observe 16 and 14 public holidays respectively. Hong Kong tops the list with 20 statutory public holidays in the year.
It is difficult to place Nigeria, where public holidays have become a mathematical function of 10+x where 10 represents the statutory public holidays published in the official gazette and ‘x’ represents the mood of the government in power. In an Election Year, ‘x’ could claim 20 days in a single month – ranging from registration and re-registration of voters, collection of temporary and permanent voters’ cards; checking of names on the voters’ register to other pre-event holidays.
Whichever way we look at it, too many holidays are counter-productive. Indeed, there is the strong belief that if a man rests too much, he would rest himself into laziness. A nation at work is a nation on the move – not the sleeping giant.
We must now begin to find ways of reducing our public holidays and re-directing our collective energies to more productive ends.
We got our nominal Independent from Britain on October 1. By that simple fact, October 1 remains our National Day and deserves to be a public holiday.
The presidential inauguration day is merely the day the President assumes duty. Nowhere else in the advanced democracies is it observed as a National Holiday. May 28 should revert to a full working day.
It would be recalled that in the President Olusegun Obasanjo years, we made a proclamation that no public holiday should be shifted from the day on which it falls. This has been observed only in the breach but our change mantra would be meaningless if we fail to give expression to such noble idea.
We can immediately reduce our public holidays by almost 50 percent. Christians should have no business with staying away from work on Id-el Maulud and other Muslim holidays. Similarly Muslims have no business observing Christmas and other Christian holidays. Let public holidays be confined to the adherents of the different religions. After all, the country is already united in more useful ways.
