HOW SECURED IS YOUR GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT? HOW GAINFUL IS YOUR SECURED EMPLOYMENT? (I)

LEGAL CLINIC

with

Misbau ‘Mislaw’ Lateef

Misbau, LLB, BL, LLM, teaches law at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria

Recently, a junior colleague sent an email to me seeking my opinion on whether he should leave his private legal practice employment with a senior lawyer in Ibadan, Oyo State, for an employment offer in the Oyo State Ministry of Justice – a public service employment – as a Law Officer/State Counsel. A Law Officer or State Counsel is a lawyer who works in the Federal or a State’s Ministry of Justice and enjoys certain privileges that his colleagues of equal ranking and qualifications in private legal practice do not enjoy. For example, a Law Officer/State Counsel is entitled to sit in the front row bench reserved for Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) and others in Court even when he is not yet a SAN. A lawyer in private legal practice who is not yet a SAN cannot do so unless with special permission of the Judge. So rather than prescribing any particular route for my colleague as he wanted me to, I simply analysed to him the two worlds of employments, at least, in Nigeria – employment with statutory flavour and employment without statutory flavour, and the attendant security and/or gain upon each variant. And of course self-employment, if it’s a form of employment at all, is not within this purview.

I went further to share with him my thoughts on why I consider the former (employment with statutory flavour) as being more secured than the latter (employment without statutory flavour) even as the latter is, more often than not, seen as more gainful than the former. In other words, whilst employments with statutory flavour, in my considered view, are the most secured types of employments in this clime they are not necessarily the most gainful. Conversely, employments without statutory flavour which are often seen as most gainful (such as working with say, Chevron or Zenith Bank) are not necessarily the most secured.

But before explaining what sort of employment has statutory flavour and which one does not, it should be pointed out from the onset that by security of employment I do not mean the certainty of regular pay that some kind of employments present or guarantee. No, I mean also the rest of mind, if you like, that some kind of employments give in terms of stability on the job and hence a near-zero risk of sudden retrenchment or loss of job. And also by gainful employment, I am restricting myself to the simple legal standpoint which defines gainful employment as meaning a work that a person can pursue and perform for money or activities intended to provide an income to a person. In other words, a paid job! Well paid or not.

I am therefore by this deliberate restriction, informed by focus and context, leaving out the perspective in psychology which sees gainful employment, and rightly so, as involving not only some sort of salary or emolument but more importantly such other indices as safe working environment, varieties in duties to be performed, happiness and satisfaction, positive engagement and involvement and etcetera. Indeed, researchers have shown that when individuals are gainfully employed, as characterized by the indices listed above, their quality of and satisfaction with life increases. It is thus to this end that positive psychologists would argue that the relationships between gainful employment and quality of life and satisfaction with life suggest that job satisfaction, as its own domain of happiness, is best achieved through gainful employment. But again, my focus here is restricted to the legal standpoint which simply emphasizes the incidence of some sort of income or salary as a measure of gainful employment. Whether such an income or emolument is commensurate to the work done is, however, another thing entirely.

Now for the restricted scope of this piece let us agree that employments with statutory flavour are generally employments in the public service or statutory corporations or agencies – such as being a law officer in a State’s Ministry of Justice, whilst those without statutory flavour are generally those in the private sector – such as working in an oil company or a bank as earlier indicated. This now brings us to the focus of this piece – the nexus between gainful employment and security of employment in the context of the striking difference between employment with statutory flavour and those without statutory flavour.

Continues next week

Editor’s note: This column will be featured on Fridays, but this edition is published on Sunday due to some issues.