The Society of Occupational and Environmental Health Practitioners of Nigeria (SOEHPON), has charged the legislative arm of government to review laws that hinder the attainment of the goal of occupational and environmental health safety for Nigerians.
Furthermore, during their 2023 Scientific Conference & Annual General Meeting, themed “Strategic Collaboration: A key Driver to Good Occupational Health Practice”, the National President of SOEHPON, Dr Musa Shaibu, said all relevant existing laws should be strengthened to effectively drive occupational and environmental health safety.
His words: “The legislature has a role to play. The available laws today in the country are obsolete and we cannot use them to drive occupational and environmental health safety today, so the legislature must update the laws and make them functional.
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“The executive arm of government is the one to put in place the regulatory arm to monitor how the laws are implemented.”
Shaibu stressed that each Nigerian must know that occupational health and safety is personal business, even if they are working in a private or personal business.
“We are not leaving any sector out to ensure that the workers in the environment in each sector have a right to obtain quality health and occupational health wherever they are.
“Despite the wonderful objectives of occupational health, the performance and service delivery is still below par compared to other countries.
“The biggest gap is in the area of ignorance because people do not even know, and that is why we are on this mission of advocacy, to educate people among those who know, they do not prioritise the issue of work and safety in the workplace.”
On her part, a professor of occupational medicine at the University of Ibadan, Prof Folasade Omokhodion, explained that SOEHPON was reaching out to all stakeholders in the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria.
“They have their smaller unions and fall under their own authorities, such that if we reach their executives, we can reach their members and not just in the big unions but the smaller informal sectors in Nigeria.
