In order to make men properly bond with their newborn baby or adopted one, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, yesterday approved a 14-day paternity leave.
The paternity leave is for men in the federal civil service.
Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, disclosed this at the end of the council’s weekly meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the First Lady’s Conference Room, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Dr. Yemi-Esan, who was flanked by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, explained that paternity leave was approved for men when their wives are delivered of their new babies.
She said the bonding was important to help the newly-born or adopted baby properly bond with the father in the early period.
The minister also said the council approved the revised Public Service Rules, PSR, which she said was revised last in 2008, adding that the revised PSR did not accommodate the removal of the dichotomy between Higher National Diploma, HND holders and Degree holders.
Yemi-Esan, who noted that work was still ongoing on the removal of the dichotomy, said: “We presented today (yesterday) the memo on the revised Public Service Rules (PSR). We are all aware that the PSR are all important tool in the public service. It is what governs the actions of public servants at work.
“The last time these rules were revised was in 2008. And so, we recognised that the revision was long overdue. And so we put everything that we got into it to ensure that we did the revision.
“These rules ideally are supposed to be revised every five years. But this has taken more than that for us to get the revised PSR 2021. In doing the revision, we had a lot of stakeholder engagements, we asked there was a circular that was put out for call from different sectors and from various groups that wanted amendments to the PSR.
“We’ve also gotten approval to include paternity leave. This is something that is new. And this is something that the unions in the service asked that we include, and luckily, we’ve been able to include it.
