In a bid to address the issue of age discrimination in employment, the Nigerian Senate has passed a resolution urging employers across the country to de-emphasize age requirements as a pre-condition for hiring.
The motion, titled “Age Requirement Pre-condition for Employment in Nigeria, Urgent Need for Intervention,” was put forward by Senator Abba Moro of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) representing Benue State.
It was deliberated upon and unanimously adopted during the Senate’s plenary session on Wednesday.
Moro, in his debate, said age limit as precondition for employment violates Chapter 4, section 42(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), which guarantees every citizen the right to freedom from discrimination.
Moro said the provision of the International Labour Organisation(ILO) had defined employment discrimination in economic terms , as a violation of human rights that entails a waste of human talents with detrimental effects on productivity, economic growth.
He said that it also generated socioeconomic inequalities that undermined social cohesion, solidarity and acted as a brake on the reduction of poverty.
He said it was pathetic for a graduate in Nigeria who could not get a job upon graduation and decided to go back to school with the hope that a higher qualification, vis-a- vis a second or Masters Degree could give him a better job.
Moro however maintained that such graduates are “thrown into a career paradox when upon completion of his Masters Degree he comes out to find that he is now above the age of employment and therefore not employable by the sole reason of his age”.
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The Senator stated further said that it is “ironical that a graduate in this country can serve in the National Youth Service Corps programme at age 30 but cannot be gainfully employed ,thereafter on the fact that he/ she is now above 30 years, a situation that is a flagrant breach of his fundamental rights.
“The circumstances described in the foregoing presents the predicament of the Nigerian youth who has the requisite qualification, knowledge, skills and is ready to work but disqualified or excluded on the sole and unjustifiable ground that he/ she is above the age limit by reason of his/ her birth”.
Moro argued that this sad situation has led many to commit age fraud by going all out to falsify their age to remain within the age limit of employability to the Nigerian Civil Service , and all other employers of labour in the country.
GOOD EVENING NIGERIA recalls that former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2020 also seeks to abolish age limit as employment requirements.
He directed the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity to set up a Committee to review the age limit for job seekers in the country to allow competent applicants to be employed by the ministries, departments, and agencies of government.
The resolution followed the consideration of a motion by Senator Ibrahim Gobir.
Gobir then also cited order 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Rules, and noted that recruitment requirements of MDAs and other private bodies which set age barriers, “inadvertently excludes and marginalises skillful and competent prospective applicants from participating in such exercises”.