Hopes that the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill may be passed into law during the current session of the National Assembly dimmed yesterday as a member of the House of Representatives Hon. Aliyu Pategi said the bill was unlikely to scale through the numerous hurdles erected along its path.
Hints that the lawmakers were not likely to grant the bill a quick passage came at an international workshop on Parliament and the Media organised by the World Bank Institute for select journalists covering the parliament in Nigeria and Ghana .
The workshop which is part of the Video Conference Series of the World Bank Institute is being coordinated from Canada and draws contributions from participants in the two West African countries.
Pategi who was guest at the conference disclosed that the delay in the passage of the bill had created a frosty relationship between the media and the parliament.
He expressed fears that the bill may not be passed before the current parliamentary session ends in about eighteen months.
”This is not to say that we as parliamentarians are not interested in assisting journalists do their work. We appreciate their concerns and positions on the Freedom of Information Bill, and we are working on them. This bill, although it has not yet been passed in Nigeria , was earlier passed by the last National Assembly, but was not assented to by the former President.
“The reasons are obvious, and we know them. And because of that I am afraid that the bill may not be passed in the life of this present National Assembly,” Pategi said.
The controversial bill which was first presented to the National Assembly in 1999 was actually passed into law in the twilight days of the Obasanjo administration, but Obasanjo refused to assent to the bill before leaving office in 2007.
The bill was re-presented to the current National Assembly but its prospect has further diminished in the hands of the legislators who seem to have developed a deep phobia for the bill.