Published February 19, 2021
Sunday Aborisade , Abuja
The Senate , on Thursday , considered a bill seeking to stop employers in the private and public sectors from engaging employable Nigerian graduates as casual workers .
The Prohibition of Casualisation Bill 2020 was sponsored by Senator Ayo Akinyelure.
Akinyelure said casualisation of Nigerian graduates in the Nigerian labour market had become a subject of great concern .
He said more workers continued to groan under this immoral strategy of cutting cost by employers rendering them inferior to their counterpart in other countries of the world .
He said , “ Statistics from the Nigeria Labour Congress shows that many workers in the telecommunications , oil and gas sectors are engaged as casual labourers by employers of labours .
“ Other sectors with thousands of casual labourers include mining , steel , banking and insurance .”
Akinyelure while citing the banking industry as a hub for casualisation , blamed banks for turning female marketers into harlots and sexual slaves in a desperate attempt by them to keep their jobs and meet unrealistic deposit targets.
He said, ‘ In the banking and insurance industry , for instance , many young graduates particularly females are employed as marketers and given unrealistic customer deposit targets running into millions .
“ They are hired and fired at will when such unrealistic targets are not met .
“ The female among them who are desperate in keeping their jobs turn to harlotry and sex slavery .
“ They , move from one office to the other looking for invisible customers who have large funds to enable them meet their targets.
“ It is high time this evil and devilish act is stopped . ”
Senator Biodun Olujimi said, “ Our girls have been turned into what we cannot imagine .
“ Most of them have been asked to look for funds, and when they come to us, I always tell them , I do not even have the funds to eat; how can I have funds to keep with you in the bank ?
“ They will never be promoted if they don ’t bring in such funds, and this is a banking industry that is privately owned , yes, but has made so much profit, and from the profit they could at least take the few that they can manage properly, rather than take a lot that they will be giving pittance . ”
The lawmaker harped on the need to have a legal framework to ensure that casualisation did not exist .
The Senate President , Ahmad Lawan , in his remark charged the Committee on Employment , Labour and Productivity to strike a balance in the bill to ensure that casual workers in the country were not made victims of layoffs .
After scaling second reading, the bill was referred to the Committee on Employment , Labour and Productivity to report back within four weeks.