Length of notice for termination of employment contract is usually determined by the parties to an employment contract. According to the Supreme Court in the case of Idufueko v. Pfizer Products Limited (2014) 12 NWLR (Pt. 1420) page 96 at 119, where an employment contract is silent regarding the period of notice for termination, a reasonable notice will be implied as sufficient to terminate the contract.
What amounts to a reasonable notice will be determined by the facts of each case, having regard to the nature of employment, the length of service and the provisions of the Labour Act, 2004. For example, one (1) month was held as a reasonable notice to terminate the contract in Talo Tuwa Sunday v. Zenith Bank Plc. (2015) 56 N.L.L.R. (Pt. 192) 460, in which the employee had worked for a year and 8 months.
Another way to determine what is reasonable notice period where there is no notice clause in the contract of employment or there is no written contract at all, is to adopt the statutory minimum period of notice. In Nigeria, the statutory minimum period of notice is governed by the Labour Act, 2004.
Section 11 (1) of the Labour Act provides that “either party to a contract of employment may terminate the contract on the expiration of notice given by him to the other party, of his intention to do so”. By section 11 (2), “the notice to be given, for the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, shall be:
| S/N | Duration of Contract | Length of Notice |
| 1 | Three month or less | One day |
| 2 | More than three months but less than two years | One week |
| 3 | Two years but less than five years | Two weeks |
| 4 | Five years or more | One month |
| 5 |
Although many lawyers have argued that the scope of the Labour Act is limited to certain class of workers and therefore cannot be invoked in the resolution of all classes of employment relations simply because the parties do not have a written contract. This argument is not only jejune but also contradicts the clear decision of the Supreme Court in Saraki v FRN (2016) 3 NWLR (pt 1500) 531 at 631 E, held inter alia that: “the meaning of a statute should be looked for not in any single section, but in all the parts together and in their relation to the end in view.”
Also, the in the unreported case of Osuki v. Lubrik (SUIT NO: NICN/YEN/49/2017) delivered on 22nd January 2019 by Hon. Justice I. S. Galadima of the National Industrial Court, where the parties did not have a written employment contract on redundancy, the Court held that the provision of Section 20 of the Labour Act would apply. It therefore goes without saying that where employer and employee fail to agree on the length of notice for termination or resignation, the provision of Section 11 (2) of the Labour Act will apply.
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