ISPON Pushes for Stronger Safety Education Reforms in Nigeria

By: Michael Mike

The Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria (ISPON) has renewed calls for comprehensive safety education reforms across the country, stressing the need to instill a culture of safety in workplaces, communities, and public spaces.

The call was made at the Abuja Safety Summit themed “Safe Cities, Sustainable Tomorrow: Pathway to Responsible Development.”

ISPON President, Chief Udezi Stephen, emphasized that membership of the institute is a statutory requirement for anyone practicing as a safety professional in Nigeria.

“ISPON membership is a must for anybody that wants to practice as a safety professional in Nigeria,” he declared.

Udezi warned that there are legal penalties for individuals and organisations that fail to comply with the ISPON Act.

“For an individual, it is 100,000 Naira… For an organization that employs a person that is not a member of ISPON, that organization can be fined a minimum of 500,000 Naira,” he explained.

Highlighting the institute’s role in streamlining safety training nationwide, Udezi stressed the need for proper accreditation of training bodies.

He noted that: “The body that is licensed and qualified and asked to do safety training in this country is the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria.”

He further underscored the importance of building a safety-first culture across Nigeria.

He said: “If we have safe cities, then you can go home, close your eyes and sleep… We must start with talking to ourselves, getting educated, being trained, so that once we have been trained and we are doing things correctly, it forms part of what we call the culture of what we are doing.”

Also speaking at the summit, the Director-General of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Barr. Oluwaseun Faleye represented by Technical Director, Dayo Alawo, stressed that safety must be seen as a national commitment rather than just a policy.

He said: “Safety is not just a policy, it is a commitment. A commitment we owe to every worker who steps into a factory, every driver navigating our highways, every builder on a construction site and every citizen walking the streets of our federal capital territory.”

Faleye explained that NSITF’s approach to workplace safety rests on three critical pillars.

“Our philosophy is rooted in three pillars which is safety. Prevention. This is our first and most critical line of defense. Compensation. Rehabilitation… to restore human potential,” he explained.

Calling for stronger partnerships, he added:

“Collaboration. Safety is a shared responsibility No agency, institution or company can achieve it alone.”

On the role of technology, Faleye urged the adoption of data-driven safety systems.

“By embracing technology and strengthening data collection, reporting and analysis, we can anticipate risks before they happen or escalate into issues and design interventions that save lives,” he said.

In her remarks, ISPON Abuja Chairman, Mrs. Ifeoma Okpara, outlined the summit’s purpose of building safer cities through collective action.

“As our theme implies… we’re looking for collaboration. We have regulators, policymakers and all of them within this space, all to create a better space and create a safety culture among the citizens of Nigeria, Abuja in particular,” she explained.

Okpara noted that progress has already been made in Abuja through multi-stakeholder cooperation.

She said: “We have done a good length, we have a lot of good collaborators… There are a lot of audits going on, inspections and sensitization, awareness and policymaking going on in the area of safety.”

She further revealed that ISPON plans to expand safety awareness campaigns beyond urban areas into rural communities.

“We are working on campaigns, we are working on sensitization sessions, even to the extent we want to bring some things down to local languages… We’re going to the market spaces, we’re going to the villages, we’re going to communities, we’re going to be advocating for all types of safety,” she stated.

The summit reinforced the urgent need for coordinated reforms, stronger enforcement of safety standards, and wider outreach to build a truly safety-conscious society in Nigeria.

ISPON Pushes for Stronger Safety Education Reforms in Nigeria