In the Nigerian workplace, safety concerns and efforts at enforcing rules faced stiff resistance. However, a new alliance is emerging to help critical stakeholders navigate the challenges of the digitalised work era, COLLINS OLAYINKA reports.

Occupational accidents are often trivialised as mere ill luck and injuries and sometimes absorbed as unavoidable costs of doing business, especially in large corporations, with workers uncompensated. Those who are better off engage in litigation that lasts several decades.
With the onerous aim of reducing these accidents, the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment are now engaging in collaboration through persuasion rather than punishment of employers.
The renewed effort is being delivered through the Safe Workplace Intervention Project (SWIP) and the Strategic Risk Improvement Programme (SRIP).
Though existing laws are available and tailored towards ensuring workplace safety, they are dogged by wide gaps. The foremost law in this regard is Nigeria’s Employees’ Compensation Act (ECA) 2010, which draws inspiration from the conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ECA 2020 is a no-fault compensation system for work-related injuries, diseases, disabilities and deaths, removing the burden from workers to prove employer negligence. About 16 years after coming into effect, compliance, particularly in the private sector, has remained a challenge.
In his intervention during the SWIP 2026 edition, which simultaneously took place in Lagos, Abuja and Enugu, the Managing Director of NSITF, Oluwaseun Faleye, declared that legislation alone cannot deliver safety.
“Law without engagement does not work. Compliance is driven by understanding, certainty, and trust across the ecosystem,” he explained.
The recognition clearly influenced NSITF’s strategic partnership with Nigeria’s employers’ association, NECA. Faleye argued that the value proposition must be anchored on predictable compensation mechanisms that reduce litigation risk, industrial disputes, and reputational exposure.

Then, for workers, Faleye insisted that the scheme offers assurance that injury or death will not automatically plunge families into poverty, for the workers, while the value the ECA holds for the government is that the scheme stabilises labour relations and aligns Nigeria with international standards such as the ILO, as well as social security bodies globally.
Undoubtedly, the velocity around workplace safety is also shaped by developments beyond Nigeria. Recall that two years ago, occupational safety and health (OSH) was elevated to a core convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which places it alongside freedom of association and the abolition of forced labour.
Core conventions apply to all ILO member states, irrespective of ratification status.
Providing more insights into the emergence of social security as an area of concern globally, the Director General of NECA, Adewale Smatt-Oyerinde, said: “This changes everything. Health and safety are no longer discretionary. It is no longer just regulatory. It is now a human rights obligation.”
He added that the shift reinforces the ILO’s long-standing principle that ‘labour is not a commodity’, which is a reminder that productivity gains built on unsafe conditions are ultimately unsustainable.

For the stakeholders, a distinct feature of SWIP is its emphasis on voluntary compliance, rather than punitive enforcement alone.
Therefore, both NSITF and NECA agreed that aggressive enforcement of safety rules and guidelines can consume public resources and provoke resistance, especially among small and medium enterprises that are struggling to survive the harsh economic conditions in the country.
The adoption audits, capacity building, feedback and public recognition remain the backbone of the exercise.
For the 2025 cycle, more than 200 workplaces across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones were audited under the technical oversight of the Occupational Safety and Health Department of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment.

The audit exercises assessed hazard prevention, behavioural safety, leadership commitment, accident investigation systems and basic infrastructure such as fire extinguishers, emergency exits and ergonomic workstations.
Providing background to the exercise, the Director, Occupational Safety and Health of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mrs Florence Owie said the process prioritised transparency, digital reporting, and structured feedback tools designed to move organisations beyond ‘paper compliance’ to real improvements in safety outcomes.
The Ministry described SWIP as a model of tripartite collaboration between government, employers, and social security institutions working towards shared outcomes.
While acknowledging limitations and lessons from the audit process, Owie who represented the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Salihu Usman, restated the commitment of the Ministry to the sustenance of the initiative.

She described safe workplaces as foundational to productivity, decent work, and national development.
Both NSITF and NECA insisted that the awards are not symbolic.
The awards are intended to create peer pressure, encourage learning, and demonstrate that compliance is achievable amid tight budgets.
Stakeholders expressed worry about how workplace accidents go under the radar in Nigeria, lamenting a culture in which injuries are often dismissed with a wave of the hand.
The Director-General of NECA argued that such attitudes obscure the long-term economic and social costs of unsafe work from chronic disability and lost productivity to healthcare burdens and intergenerational poverty.

Oyerinde-Smatt added: “Even when someone survives an accident, the consequences rarely disappear. And when workers stay silent in unsafe environments, they become unwilling participants in the risk.”
It was hinted that the project also highlighted gaps in awareness, saying many employers, auditors observed, underestimate everyday hazards despite employees spending up to a quarter of their lives at work.
On his part, the President of NECA, Dr Ifeanyi Okoye, said workplace safety is no longer a regulatory obligation alone, but a strategic business imperative.
His words: “Safe workplaces enhance productivity, protect human capital, reduce compensation exposure, and ultimately support business sustainability and national economic growth. Through SWIP, NECA and NSITF continue to reinforce the message that prevention is better than compensation, and that safety must be embedded in organisational culture.”
Going into the future, NSITF and NECA admitted that traditional safety frameworks are being challenged by changes in how work is organised.
They noted that remote work, Artificial Intelligence, digital platforms, and blurred boundaries between home and office are interrogating complex questions about where the workplace actually begins and ends.

They seem to be at a loss on how to define injury when work tools have mostly gone virtual. How to interpret occupational hazards when an accident occurs outside of the four walls of an office space.
Therefore, for NSITF, NECA, the government, and critical stakeholders, the future iterations of SWIP must be prepared to address emerging risks and ensure that Nigeria’s safety systems remain relevant in a changing economy.
It is acknowledged by all that the success of SWIP will not be measured by ceremonies or certificates, but by lower occupational mortality, deepening prevention cultures, and a collective shift in mindset that treats safety as a priority and recognising it as an investment in human capital for development.