Every year, there is this natural crave for public holidays amongst employees, this year is again loaded with public holidays and for sure workers and private individuals are already making plans on how to spend the holidays with their spouses or families. Most workers usually have a list of public holidays approved by the Federal government of Nigeria at the beginning of the year so they could plan their annual leave to coincide with the public holiday, which makes it even more splendid
Everyone looks forward to every possible national public holidays in Nigeria be it state or Federal government approved. Though most organizations in Nigeria only respects the Federal public holidays, except for civil servants of the state that respects both Federal and state holidays. While some organizations would only automatically observe holidays that banks observe.
Please note that it is customary in Nigeria to give extra holiday for any public holiday that falls into the weekend. That is to say, any public holiday that falls on the weekend, it is usually pushed to Monday.
In this post, we shall be giving you the full breakdown of all national public holidays in Nigeria for 2021 as well as states and world recognized public holidays like the May 1st known as workers or Labour day and so on.
Approved National Public Holidays In Nigeria for Year 2021
| Date | Name of Public Holiday | Type of Public Holiday | ||
| 1 Jan | Wednesday | New Year’s Day | Public Holiday | |
| 8 Mar | Sunday | Women’s Day | Observance | |
| 20 Mar | Friday | March Equinox | Season | |
| 22 Mar | Sunday | Mothering Sunday | Observance | |
| 10 Apr | Friday | Good Friday | Public Holiday | |
| 11 Apr | Saturday | Holy Saturday | Observance, Christian | |
| 12 Apr | Sunday | Easter Sunday | Observance, Christian | |
| 13 Apr | Monday | Easter Monday | Public Holiday | |
| 1 May | Friday | Workers’ Day | Public Holiday | |
| 24 May | Sunday | Id el Fitr | Public Holiday | |
| 25 May | Monday | Id el Fitr additional holiday | Public Holiday | |
| 27 May | Wednesday | Children’s Day | Observance | |
| 12 Jun | Friday | Democracy Day | Public Holiday | |
| 20 Jun | Saturday | June Solstice | Season | |
| 21 Jun | Sunday | Father’s Day | Observance | |
| 31 Jul | Friday | Id el Kabir | Public Holiday | |
| 1 Aug | Saturday | Id el Kabir additional holiday | Public Holiday | |
| 20 Aug | Thursday | Al-Hijra | Local holiday | |
| 22 Sep | Tuesday | September Equinox | Season | |
| 1 Oct | Thursday | National Day | Public Holiday | |
| 29 Oct | Thursday | Id el Maulud | Public Holiday | |
| 21 Dec | Monday | December Solstice | Season | |
| 22 Dec | Tuesday | Sambisa Memorial Day | Local holiday | |
| 24 Dec | Thursday | Christmas Eve | Observance, Christian | |
| 25 Dec | Friday | Christmas Day | Public Holiday | |
| 26 Dec | Saturday | Boxing Day | Public Holiday | |
| 31 Dec | Thursday | New Year’s Eve | Observance |
The above are the national public holidays in Nigeria approved by the federal government and this is binding on all public and privately owned establishments operating in Nigeria. Note that that there are other public holidays celebrated by the world not listed in this post, in such situation, the company is at liberty to either observe the public holiday or do otherwise.
There are also some states public holidays observed by companies within the states only however, most financial institutions are exempted from observing the such public holiday, rather state owned establishments and corporations stay at home in such scenario.
In summary, the number of public holidays in Nigeria is 30. You can plan your leave alongside your family if you are married, summer holidays or tours within these period to get the best out of it. Happy holiday!
