Institutional trust and social protection have emerged as critical pillars in Nigeria’s quest for sustainable development, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Oluwaseun Faleye, has said.

The NSITF boss argued that no nation can achieve lasting progress where workers remain unprotected and public confidence in institutions is weak.

He added that institutional trust is key to building public confidence in the citizenry.

Speaking at the 2026 Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Gwagwalada Branch in Abuja, Faleye said the future of effective governance in Nigeria depends not only on laws being enacted, but on institutions being strengthened to deliver on their legal obligations.

His words: “For those of us entrusted with public responsibility, service must mean more than occupying office. It must mean using institutions to protect the vulnerable, uphold fairness, and leave systems better than we found them. For the Bar, it means defending the integrity of law and ensuring that justice remains accessible, principled, and alive.

“For institutions like NSITF, it means ensuring that social protection is not treated as charity. but as a lawful and necessary pillar of national development.”

Faleye, one of the most important tasks confronting the nation is to bridge the gulf between legal rights and lived realities.

He said: “Across many societies, and certainly within ours, one of the greatest challenges of governance is not merely policy design but public confidence. Citizens want to know that laws will not remain on paper. Workers want to know that statutory protections will function when tested. Employers want clarity, fairness, and predictability.”

Faleye noted that the gathering is not only a celebration but also a moment of reflection.
He submitted that the gathering brought together the conscience of the legal profession, the custodians of justice, and men and women whose daily work shapes the relationship between the citizen and the State.

The gathering of the mandate of the NSITF, through the Employees’ Compensation Scheme, is rooted in a simple but powerful principle – that no worker who suffers injury, disease, disability or death in the course of employment should be left alone to bear that burden.

He noted that the principle is both legal and moral.

“It is legal because it is established under the Employees’ Compensation Act. It is moral because it speaks to the kind of society we must build, one in which work is not separated from dignity, and productivity is not detached from protection. At NSITF, we understand that trust is not demanded; it is built. It is built claim by claim, process by process, reform by reform, and decision by decision,” he said.

Faleye lamented that most times public discourse celebrates enterprise, Investment, growth, and productivity without giving equal attention to the human beings whose labour sustains them.

He explained: “But behind every factory, every office, every construction site, every transport system, every public institution, and every service economy are workers who take risks, make sacrifices, and keep the nation moving.

“When such workers are harmed in the course of that service, social justice demands a response. Not sympathy alone. Not rhetoric alone. But a structured, lawful, institutional response. That is the essence of social protection.”

According to him, the law must not only be a framework for adjudicating disputes, but it must also be a civilizational statement of what a society considers acceptable, protected, and just.

“In labour relations, in social insurance, in compensation systems, and in institutional accountability, the law performs one of its noblest functions: it stands between vulnerability and abandonment”.

He maintained that the legal profession occupies a central place in the architecture of social trust.

He charged lawyers to help shape the instruments that define rights and obligations while Judges interpret those rights, regulators enforce them, and public institutions implement them.

He added that ultimately, the citizen encounters justice not only in the courtroom, but in the lived reality of whether institutions respond fairly, promptly, and transparently”.

In his welcome address, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Gwagwalada Branch, Clever Owhor, said restoring public trust in the nation’s legal system requires a shared responsibility by all stakeholders.

He said: “This year, we are united under a theme that is both timely and urgent: ‘Rebuilding Public Trust in the Nigerian Legal System’.

“Today, we must confront an uncomfortable reality: Many Nigerians are increasingly losing confidence in the legal system. Concerns about delays in justice delivery, perceived lack of transparency, ethical challenges, and barriers to access to justice have combined to create a widening gap between the legal system and the public,” he stated.