This
report was written by Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director of
Media Rights Agenda (MRA), and Maxwell Kadiri, Country
Advocate for Nigeria for the Global Internet Policy
Initiative (GIPI). Comments on the initial draft were
made by Josephine Izuagie, Vice Chair of the Executive
Committee of Media Rights Agenda; Osaro Odemwingie,
Coordinator of the Freedom of Information Coalition;
Fabian Okoye, Program Officer at the International Human
Rights Law Group; Ayode Longe, MRA’s Publications
Officer, and Johnson Ademoyewa, Campaigns Officer.
Media
Rights Agenda would like to thank PACE/International
Human Rights Law Group for their support in funding the
writing and publication of this report.
Foreword
The first
Parliament of the Fourth Republic has ended its term and
the second one has just been inaugurated. It is thus
time for an assessment of our legislative advocacy
programme. I believe that there is a wrong perception
that the inability of civil society organizations to get
any of their bills passed by the National Assembly in
the last four years is an indication of failure in the
legislative advocacy programmes embarked up by the
various organizations, many of them supported by the
International Human Rights Law Group. I think this
perception is wrong.
Given the
intense pressure from funders for “concrete outcomes”,
many civil society organizations had been pushed into
promising that their legislative advocacy programmes
would produce the desired outcomes of their proposed
bills being passed into law. There is therefore a sense
of despondency among some of them that they have failed
in their legislative advocacy endeavours. This view is
short sighted.
When the
work of the National Assembly over the last four years
is reviewed however, a number of issues become clear.
The business of making laws was secondary in their
work. As soon as the National Assembly settled down
after its inauguration in 1999, it began to face a
number of problems, among them instability of the
leadership, instability of the various committees and
their heads, and an inability to devote time to
legislative work. In the several months in which the
crisis between the National Assembly and the Executive
persisted, the meetings held by the respective chambers
of the National Assembly were devoted essentially to
devising ways and strategies of fighting the Presidency
and resisting its influence or interference in the
Legislature.
This
battle itself was of significant importance as it was
part of the process of the National Assembly asserting
its authority and independence. For legislative
advocacy to make sense there must be legislative houses
that are not mere rubber stamp institutions for the
Executive.
In this
context, civil society organizations failed to
incorporate the crises of the Legislature as a central
aspect of their work since it had implications for their
legislative advocacy programmes as well as for the wider
democracy project. Since the issue was largely a
political problem, civil society organizations had a
duty to intervene.
However,
one major consequence of the crisis was that only a few
laws were passed by the National Assembly, over half of
them being appropriation and supplementary appropriation
laws. It was not only private members bills that
suffered from the situation. A number of Executive
bills, including bills aimed at domesticating various
international human rights treaties, which Nigeria has
signed or ratified, were also never treated before the
National Assembly was dissolved.
The
success of civil society legislative advocacy programmes
ought therefore not to be measured by the number of
bills that they succeeded in getting passed. What was
most important was that civil society organizations
developed the capacity to engage in legislative
advocacy. Therefore, for many organizations to have
succeeded in introducing bills into the National
Assembly, getting them gazetted, following the bills
through the relevant committees and in some cases,
actively participating in public hearings, have been
tremendous achievements made in the area of legislative
advocacy over the last four years.
One such
bill which made impressive showing despite not being
passed is the Freedom of Information Bill. For the
International Human Rights Law Group, the Media Rights
Agenda and the Freedom of Information Coalition have
been valuable partners in the task of promoting
transparency and accountability in Nigeria. We hope that
this partnership will continue during the life of the
current Parliament. The lessons learnt from the vibrant
legislative advocacy effort, which are captured in this
book, will be valuable to other organizations as they
continue or initiate their own legislative advocacy
programmes.
Jibrin Ibrahim, PhD
Country
Director, Nigeria
International Human Rights Law Group, Abuja
June 2003
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Introduction
Since 1999
when Media Rights Agenda first presented the Freedom of
Information Bill to some members of the House of
Representatives to sponsor it in the National Assembly, the
bill has made impressive progress through the legislative
process, although it has fallen short of being passed.
Although the
campaign efforts by Media Rights Agenda and its
collaborating organizations for the enactment of the bill
into law have not yet resulted in its being passed, they
have successfully put the issues involved on the front
burner of public discourse.tc "The
campaign efforts my Media Rights Agenda and its
collaborating organizations
for the enactment of a Freedom of Information in Nigeria has
successfully put
the issues involved on the front burner of public
discourse."
tc ""
Initial support for the campaign for the enactment of the
Freedom of Information Bill came from ARTICLE 19, the Global
Campaign for Free Expression. Subsequently, the
International Human Rights Law Group largely supported the
campaign. The advocacy efforts on the bill have been
conducted on a three pronged approach involving media
campaigns, activities targeted at the legislators, and
activities aimed at ensuring broad civil society involvement
in the campaign, including the establishment of a Freedom of
Information Coalition.
Media campaigns, which have been a crucial aspect of the
advocacy programme, have involved visits to media houses to
meet with journalists, editors and columnists to solicit
their support for the campaign through the publication of
articles, editorial comments and stories on the freedom of
information issue; issuing periodic press releases to
highlight developments on the issues; granting of press
interviews on the issue; facilitating publication of feature
stories and opinion articles.
The objective of these activities was to maintain a high
level of public discourse on the issue of access to
information in the expectation that such intense public
debate would persuade the legislators about the desirability
of passing the bill.
There were
also direct advocacy activities targeted at the legislators,
numerous meetings, both formal and informal, held by
officers and staff members of MRA and other partner
organisations with members of both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, to solicit their support for
the bill.
In order to
ensure broad civil society support for the bill, a series of
formal and informal meetings were also held with
representatives of other NGOs and associations to coordinate
the campaign for the enactment of the bill into law. MRA
has also organized a number of stakeholders’ meetings on the
bill. One such meeting, held in September 2000, led to the
formation of the Freedom of Information Coalition.
Since the Freedom of Information bill was the first bill to
be sponsored by a civil society organisation in the National
Assembly after the restoration of democratic rule, this
publication is intended to document the experience garnered
by Media Rights Agenda and its partners in campaigning for
the enactment of the bill into law in the hope that other
organisations currently involved in similar advocacy work or
intending to launch legislative advocacy projects would
learn from the experience by avoiding any mistakes which may
have been made in the campaign while being able to adopt
those strategies that have worked.
Edetaen Ojo
Executive
Director
Media Rights
Agenda
Lagos, May
2003
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