DIFFICULT TASK: It was bound to be – selection of the best journalist, that is. But it was a task that needed to be accomplished. Of the over 1,400 entries for this year’s CNN/MULTICHOICE AFRICA JOURNALIST AWARD, 27 finalists emerged. And of the finalists, only 16 winners emerged in the categories up for grabs.

Isaac O. Aberare, General secretary, Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers. In this interview with Moses Nosike of Saturday Vanguard, on casualisation in Nigeria, he reveals how indigenous and foreign companies contravene Labour laws because of government inability to enforce them. He stressed further how Nigerian workers spend 30 years in an employment as contract staff and others.

As 2015 draws very near, Nigeria is still not listed any where near the 10 countries that have made rapid progress to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which particularly include MDGI (eradicate extreme poverty) by providing gainful employment to a significant proportion of its population.

It is really not easy to work here especially, as a casual staff. Some of us that are here as casual staff are most often subjected to what could be called slavery. We are often treated like slaves. If not that, I don’t like staying idle, this is not the kind of place I had in mind working after spending some years in the polytechnic to get an OND certificate.

I graduated six years ago from one of the Nigerian universities, married with two children and an aged mother to cater for. After a long search for a job which was never available,I decided to enroll with one of the private contract firms,which fixed me up with a factory work where I receive N1300 for labour on daily basis.