Freedom of Information Bill

Nigerian Tribune Editorial, December 11, 2006

OPEN Sesame: Looking for the Right to information in the Commonwealth” is a report of the International Advisory Commission of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. The report sees information as a precious resource. It says that contrary to the belief of many public officials, governments do not own information. It maintains that information is a public good in much the same way as clean air, electricity and water are.

THE report avers that information is not a gift of the government to be bestowed on a whim. It takes the position that the right to access information simply returns to citizens what has always been rightfully theirs.

The Right to Tell – The Role of the Mass Media in Economic Development is a publication of the World Bank Institute which pungently touches on the subject of information. In his foreword to the publication , the immediate past president of the World Bank Group, James D. Welfensohn, says 1.2 billion people worldwide live on less than one dollar a day. He contends that in order to reduce poverty, the world must liberate access to information and improve quality of information. According to him, people with more information are empowered to make better choices.

ON November 15, the Senate passed the Freedom of Information Bill which was initiated by a coalition of civil society groups seven years ago – the year democratic rule was restored in Nigeria. The House of Representatives had passed the bill two years and three months earlier. The bill now awaits the usual harmonisation of the versions passed by the two chambers after which it will be forwarded to the president for his assent to become law.

THE bill as passed by the Senate states that every citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has a legally enforceable right, on application, to any record under the control of a government or public institution. It will, when it becomes law, ensure the availability of public records to citizens of the country as of right. This will, in turn, promote informed participation of the citizenry in public discourse, promote accountability by public officers and enhance government’s anti-corruption efforts. It will also facilitate formulation and administration of policies and bring about transparency in governance. Under the proposed law, any government official that wilfully destroys or attempts to destroy government records runs the risk of imprisonment.

THE right to access information on the activities of government and its institutions means different things to actors on the two sides of the divide. The media, civil society organisations and professional associations have always been in the vanguard of the agitation to hold government accountable. They see in a freedom of information law an opportunity to monitor actions and processes in the conduct of government business. They pursue the enactment of the law with vigour because it will empower the people to see through the shenanigans that often characterise the political life and economic management of the country.

IT is not unusual that political power holders will be apprehensive of the likely consequences of quickly passing a law that will guarantee an unfettered access to facts and figures. The murky transactions and less-than-candid declarations could become subjects of public discourse sooner or later. Another major disincentive to the expeditious enactment of such a law is the realisation that the usual recourse to national interest or the official secrets act will cease to serve as a refuge in the face of apparent official misconduct. That a bill initiated seven years ago is still two vital stages – harmonisation and presidential assent – away from the status of a law is sufficient evidence of this conflict of interests.

WHEN in 1999, the Civil Liberties Organisation, the Media Rights Agenda and others joined hands to initiate the bill, they saw access to information as a vital component of democratic government. They pursued their self-assigned task with missionary zeal. They saw themselves as fellow crusaders with President Olusegun Obasanjo who immediately on assumption of office indicated his readiness to wrestle corruption to the ground. They packaged a bill on freedom of information which they enthusiastically forwarded to the President Obasanjo to pass it on to the National Assembly as an executive bill. To their chagrin their offer of a collaborative crusade was met with a contemptuous rebuff. The civil society organisations were disappointed but they were not discouraged. They embarked on a frantic search for other possibility and, at the end of the day, the bill found its way to the National Assembly as a private members bill. That the freedom of information bill has gone this far is attributed to the courage, commitment and never-say-die spirit of the media, the civil society organisations and other allies in the National Assembly.

ALMOST 50 countries around the world have enacted laws requiring government to reveal information to the public. South Africa is the only African country that has so far adopted a freedom of information law and it is our fervent hope that Nigeria will sooner than later join the fold. It is a long established fact that access to information promotes openness in government which in turn constitutes an effective antidote to corruption. Less corruption results in better governance and the corollary to this is an improvement in the level of services and the quality of life.

THAT the bill has gone this far demonstrates that the nation is ready to dispel certain notions that deny the public the opportunities to understand and censure government activities. Access to information is not a luxury. It is a basic necessity in any democratic setting in which emphasis is on rendering service to the people rather than preying on them.