Putting FOI Bill In Proper Perspective

The axiom that government remains the media’s fair weather friend in our climate cannot find better platform for demonstration than the macabre drama now staged around the refusal by the National Assembly to pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill into law. But this was expected. In any closed, corruption-endemic system, no attempt to subvert the status-quo in whatsoever guise would succeed like a duck on water. Without meeting resistance from the forces that have kept the people in bondage.

Thus, the FOI bill is perceived by the National Assembly, at least going by its original intendments, as a booby-trap capable of torpedoing their present stewardship and their future political careers. As the Senate power probe, and Patricia Etteh’s house renovation saga clearly showed, there are bundles of shady transactions wrapped in “official secrecy” at the National Assembly, that pass without any mention in the media. Is it therefore, a thing of surprise that the FOI bill spent seven years at the National Assembly under the Obasanjo civilian administration alone and when it was eventually passed for assent six months to the end of that administration, the president refused his assent, citing security reasons and the title of the bill as excuses for doing so?

One of the cardinal objectives of the FOI bill is to create an enabling atmosphere for the entrenchment and sustenance of accountability in public office. Its basic thrust is to facilitate unfettered access to statutorily unrestricted information in the public domain, empowering the public and civil society groups to hold officials accountable as well as creating opportunities for the people to be judge of whether or not their government officials are good stewards of public funds. It must be noted that accountability in public office can only be guaranteed when there is openness, transparency and “a-people-carrying-along.” disposition in the process of governance. This requires elected or appointed officials to, from time to time; inform the people without padding, equivocation or prevarication, how much resources they receive on behalf of the people, how and on what they spend such resources, and how much is left in the public till.

Commonsensically, openness which is the oxygen that sustains a democracy, is an important first step in holding governments accountable for how they manage the people’s money. Information is the fuel which powers the engine of democracy, and the media are the conducting valves that transport this fuel to every part of the engine. And since the media trade in information, they ipso facto occupy a central position in creating and sustaining an open society. It is with this realisation that the framers of the Constitution enshrined in section 22, that. “The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.” Often construed as the fourth arm of government after the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, the Press is entwined with demoncracy like Siamese twins. This largely lies in the capability of the latter to keep the other arms of government honest and intoning in the public interest.

An obvious stumbling block in the path of the media to consummate their constitutional mandate to uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people is the battery of anti-progressive statutes that restrict access to information and hobble the drive to hold public officials accountable. These satutes, like the archaic official Secrets Act, promote secrecy and corruption in public offices, even as they hamstring the media from fulfilling that which the constitution had empowered them to do.

In such a scenario, the necessity for an enabling law to guarantee unhindered access to information held by public offices becomes imperative. It is for this that the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) partnered other civil society groups to sponsor an FOI bill in 2000 for passage in the National Assembly. However, it is a sad testament that the journey of the bill at the two-chambered legislature, with no fewer than three different versions presented at four different times, has now assumed a life of its own.

Whereas, it is apposite to note that the media’s roles in a democracy is to serve as an optical lens or microscope of information through which the peope know everything those exercising their mandate or consent (will) to govern, do on their behalf while in office.

This is why Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye said this of the tug-of-war at the National Assembly over the FOI bill before it: “It is very clear in the Constitution that the Press is not given the power of trial of public office holders on the pages of newspapers, magazines, on radio or television.

The constitutional duty given to the press is that of monitoring and making public officers accountable to the people at all times.”

That the media are championing the cause to see the FOI bill passed is justified. Saying this, the FOI bill should not be mistaken for a media bill, even though it bears much saliency with the spiralling web of media functionality in the information society of the 21st century. In its undiluted form. FOI defines the process by wich information or record under the control of a governmental agency or body is accessed. In other words, it is a legally enforceable right of a citizen to request information held by a governmental body.

Laconically, the application or use of the FOIA is not restricted to journalism practitioners (media people) as the uninformed are wont to believe completely and argue blindly.

This is the reason civil society organisations view it as an elixir for good governance in society and see those opposing the passage of the bill as enemies of development who have something to hide.

With the benefit of historical hindsight, the ill-fated Nigerian FOI bill resonates with fervour, and underscores the fact that freedom of information acts (FOIAs) had never been won anywhere without a sustained and protracted fight. Even in the United State from which the FOIA model was exported to many countries, it came about after much pressure from media groups and organisations, consumer associations. etc.

Spanning 20 years from 1945 to 1965. The American Congress passed the FOIA in 1966.

The law (FOIA) gave the public the right to discover what the government was up to, with certain exceptions. It sets out the basic instructions to follow to get information which if improperly withheld by a governmental body would warrant a court of law to compel such governmental body to disclose or release what is sought from it. There are, however, some exceptions which may not be disclosed, especially those concerning national security.

Notable exceptions include trade secrets, law enforcement and investigation files (reports), geological surveys or maps of oil wells and locations, details of troops movement during military operations, trade secrets. Personal medical records,, materials exempted by statutes, inter and/or intra-agency memoranda, et al. The Nigerian model stipulated a three years jail term without an option of fine for any public office holders who violate the law for materials not exempted.

Being a nation in desperate need to develop rapidly to meet its 2020 developmental aspirations. Nigeria cannot afford to continue to play politics with the FOI bill’s passage into law, passage of the bill is not only a dialectical necessity but a national imperative, particularly when it is considered that lack of transparency and openness in governance is the bane of effective budget implementation and tracking, service delivery and thus, rapid development of the nation.

The passage of the FOI bill into law is in the best interest of Nigeria. The problem of Nigeria may not be that of an FOI Act meant to facilitate the process of ridding the nation of what is the greatest impediment to advancement and to make it torrid for the apostles of corruption to practice their craft.

The real problem of Nigeria lies with the very people being dignified as leaders in the dark rooms of public offices and corrupting the art of civil governance. They are the very people fighting with every ounce of their might to keep the floodlights of transparency and openness permanently switched off in the land. In fact, they are the enemies of development who have been working against the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Alemu Wrote in from Port Harcourt.

Dennis Alemu