Safety experts advocate proactive measures to curb workplace hazards

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Vice President, NISCN, Engr. A.A. Oyewole representing President, Mr Cletus Akhigbe; MD/CEO, 9jaSAFE Award, Alhaji Dr Lateef Alebiosu; Governing Board member, ISPON, High Chief Innocent Okunamiri representing ISPON President, Dr Nnamdi Ilodiuba at the 9jaSAFE Press Conference held at ISPON Headquarters on Friday, May 31.

The Registrar, Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria (ISPON) Mr Bola Aborode, on Saturday joined other safety experts in calling for adoption of proactive measures to curb hazards, especially in the workplace.

Aborode, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, said that adherence to the tenets of Occupational Safety and Health policies would save the country a lot of material and human losses.

According to Aborode, the reactionary actions put up by most safety operators would always scratch the surface of incidents and not proffer permanent solutions to the issues.

“We have witnessed several tanker fire incidents with many lives lost and property wasted, but these are issues that ought to have been resolved at the loading depots.

“Building collapse is becoming a recurring issue in the country, exerting more pressure on our already over-stretched emergency agencies and leaving tales of woes in our fire brigade strategies,’’ he said.

Aborode said that those were occupational safety issues that ought to have been taken care of with the application of the Universal Safety Code.

He regretted the non-passage of the National Occupational Safety and Health Bill by the National Assembly as hindrance to regulation, urging the 9th assembly to expedite action on the bill.

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Aborode added that safety operators should arm themselves with refresher courses to be in tune with latest standards in the practice.

Similarly, Mr Cletus Akhigbe, President, National Industrial Safety Council of Nigeria (NISCN), in another interview with NAN, called on the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to make the passage of the bill a priority.

According to him, the bill will guarantee the safety of all and sundry, if the country must actualise safe and healthy workplaces.

He said the Occupational and Safety Health policies bill had to be passed to give legal backing to enforcement and regulation of safety issues in the country.

“This bill will put the nation on a safety path. It is the first step in the actualisation of a good and healthy work environment.

“It will help the country to stem accidents that have resulted in the loss of life and property,’’ he said.

Akhigbe, who attributed most of the petroleum products tanker road mishaps and building collapse to professional neglect and dearth of regulatory and enforcement policies, said the passage of the bill would stem the hazards.

“It is one bill the country dearly needs to ensure safety health in workplaces.

“We are appealing to the 9th National Assembly to expedite action on the bill in order to bolster the economy and drive foreign investment,” he added.

And in a related development, Dr Lateef Alebiosu, Managing Director, 9jaSAFE, Co-organisers of the 2019 Safety Excellence Award, told NAN that safety issues were a serious matter, deserving of urgent attention.

He cited an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report which said that one worker died every 15 seconds worldwide, while 6,000 die daily and more than two million die annually from work-related accidents and diseases.

NAN reports that the ILO also stated that 153 workers are involved in work-related accidents daily.

Alebiosu noted that from the ILO statistics, more people died at work nowadays than in wars and even natural disasters. (NAN)

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