The Nigerian Freedom of Information Act

Nigeria passed its Freedom of Information Act, which has been under consideration for at least five years.  According to the Daily Independent, “Many Nigerians have for long believed that FOI would help in remedying the issue of corruption in Nigeria.

FoI Act: The morning after

Emma Maduabuchi, Assistant Features Editor, Daily Independent
Posted 6 June 2011

“For many Nigerians, President Goodluck Jonathan was able to write his name in gold recently, by being the first to sign into law, the longest bill in Nigeria’s legislative history – the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill.

The bill was sent to the President on May 27, and he assented to it 24 hours later. With the passage of this bill, it becomes possible for a journalist, or any Nigerian for that matter to request information from an official of government, and to receive the information requested for. It becomes necessary also to take a public official to court, who has breached this law, and obtain judgment that can send the individual to jail.

Incidentally, now that the battle to have the bill passed into law has finally been accomplished, other issues are taking the centre stage in relation to the law. There appears to be now, a different kind of feeling amongst journalists concerning the act. Some journalists think that there should now be a shift of strategies and tactics, from fighting to have the bill passed into law, to how best it must be utilised to serve best the purpose for which it was enacted.

Indeed, feelers from some media institutions in the country indicated that there is now a feeling of how best the law is to be used to benefit the media, the society and humanity at large.

Among many seasoned journalists who spoke on ways of maximising the importance of the act, were some who advised that the bill must first of all be studied and dissected by every journalist in the practice, in order to understand and master it. Others were of the belief that every media organisation must begin immediately to put the act to work.

Ray Ekpu, veteran journalist and former Managing Director (MD) of Newswatch magazine, Nigerian foremost news magazine, is among those who believe that journalist must study the legislation. He explained that it is after they have studied the legislation that they would and should begin to vigorously put it into proper use.

His words: “Journalists must first of all study and comb the act properly, to see where the advantages are and where the loopholes are. Then they can begin to access the information and to put it to work.”

Another veteran, Okey Ifionu, who is an Editorial Board member of ThisDay Newspapers, counselled that media organisations must not waste time in testing the waters by taking out time to test the FoI Act. He said that it was one thing to have a law on ground for the practice of journalism, and another thing to put the law to work in the business of journalism.

According to him, old habits die hard, and it behooves media organisations to make the requests for information to be made available to them, and where the officials refuse, to go to court to compel the compliance of such officials.

“It is the courts really that have the major job to do here. But the media must first of all take the cases to courts for the courts to adjudicate.”

Funke Fadugba, a former Chairman of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Lagos State, in support of Ekpu for meticulous study of the law by everyone in the business of journalism, stated that it was necessary since no court would take ignorance of the law as an excuse. She therefore called on journalist to be more careful, more painstaking in doing their job, and more responsible in carrying out the duties required of them under the FoI law.

“This law calls for caution and responsibility on the part of media people. It is not going to be business as usual; it calls for promotion of the ideals that will help Nigeria grow; and every journalist must take it serious.”

Apart from individual efforts to master the law, she also said that all media institutions and organisation in the country must now begin to make individual and collective efforts to see that every journalist has the nitty-gritty of the law at their fingertips. She called on the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ); the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE); Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN); and every other body and individual that has a stake in the profession to begin to organise seminars and workshops that would help in making journalists master the new law.

“NUJ, NGE, NPAN, and other such bodies should help in organising different fora where journalists and media workers would have experts and informed people brought to educate and inform them,” she said.

Fadugba believes government also has a huge part to play in making Freedom of Information a reality in practice. For instance, she used the opportunity to call on government to make sure that Official Secret Act (OSA), a law which restricts public officials from making information available to the public, is repealed in order to remove unnecessary litigations in the matter of making information available.

“The Official Secret Act must be repealed to make the FoI law very effective as public officials may still want to hide under it to withhold information,” she said.

The bill started its journey during the first term of former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, when Media Rights Agenda (MRA), together with other interested bodies started the move to have it passed into law. They crafted the bill and had such National Assembly members like Abike Dabiri, of the House of Representatives, help in pushing it through.

The bill was passed into law by both chambers of the National Assembly at the tail end of legislative year in 2007, but former President Olusegun Obasanjo vetoed it, claiming among other fleeting excused that the nomenclature of the bill should have been right of information and not freedom of information.

Primarily, press freedom is described to mean that news media are not subject to censorship by the government, either directly or indirectly. This means that government does not have the right to try to control or block certain information from being published by the press. According to experts, another term often used in this context is Prior Restraint, which means any attempt by government to prevent the expression of ideas before they are published. Under the First Amendment of the United States of America (USA) constitution, Prior Restraint is clearly unconstitutional.

“Congress shall make no law” respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

As a matter of fact, USA is one of the countries where passage of Freedom of Information bill into law is no longer an issue. Instead, the major issue it faces today is how to meet up on the requests of the people for information. Many informed Nigerian journalists have long before now been hoping that Nigeria will one day be in similar position.

This was a major reason IE Discovery, a leading provider of comprehensive Discovery Management solutions to legal community, at a time last year, offered to help government agencies to meet up with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) services, which would help it meet up with the often-onerous burden of fulfilling the requests.
A variant of the issue of freedom of information was seen in Nigeria with the argument of members of the National Assembly, who refused to pass the bill into law because they did not trust that journalists would be able to conduct themselves properly in discharging their function.

Some members of both chambers of the NASS have on occasions claimed that they had not pressed for the passage of the bill because they were not sure the media would complement the action by maintaining a great degree of fairness and restraint in their reportage. This was an argument informed Nigerians described as a wrong way of looking at the issue. Such people insisted that it was wrong for a body saddled with the responsibility to make laws for the good of the country to refuse to make a good law because they do not trust those who would use the law. Their argument, such people claimed, should be that the law would benefit the nation as a whole and not just the media.

Ifionu had said that responsibility brings out the best in individuals and that if the bill became law, that it would only enhance journalism and bring out the best in the practitioners.
He had therefore described such argument as “a wayward way of looking at the issue. This is a law that puts power in the hands of the ordinary people. Agreed, it will enhance the practice of journalism in the country, it is erroneous to believe that the bill is for journalists alone.”

Others also picked holes with the position of the NASS members. They claimed that working for a free press is an ideal that must not be sacrificed on the alter of such excuses. They had given reasons with the United States of America (USA’s) first amendment to its constitution done without contemplating the future conduct of journalists.

In the 2000 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom in Nigeria, the U.S. Department of State on February 16, had this to say about the environment upon which the media was operating in the country: “Not only is the press faced with political instability and uncertainty, but the infrastructure of the nation is lacking in many basic services too. The internal infrastructure of Nigeria has not been maintained over the years. Portions of the government are not fully functional. Due to political corruption, including bribes and payoffs, oil-rich Nigeria does not have the basic services available to its citizens that other nations provide that have fewer natural resources, but are better managed.”

Many Nigerians have for long believed that FoI would help in remedying the issue of corruption in Nigeria. Now, with the passage of the bill, the journey to doing that has just started. And the next few years will prove them right or wrong.

Source: Daily Independent

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