The Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill may not be passed into law by the National Assembly before 2011 when the tenure of the present administration will expire, a member of the House of Representatives, Ahman Pategi, has said.
Mr. Pategi (PDP, Kwara) said at a World Bank Forum with National Assembly correspondents and their Ghanaian counterparts yesterday that the time left for the lawmakers to work on the Bill is short, adding that it may be left for the succeeding legislature to pass it.
He said, while responding to tele-conferencing questions put to him by a Canadian moderator of the forum, Chris Cobb, that a typical Nigerian politician, whether in or out office, is wary of granting the media access to all kinds of information.
He added that the relationship between the journalists covering the National Assembly is not at its best because of the delay in the passage of the Bill, which seeks to grant people, including journalists, unrestricted access to information.
Mr. Pategi said that the last session of the parliament passed the Bill but for some reason the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, withheld his assent and it was re-introduced to the two chambers of the National Assembly.
“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 them I am afraid that the Bill may not be passed in the life of this present National Assembly,” he said.
Stuck in the House
Since 2007, the FoI Bill has been thrown out three times on the floor of the House of Representatives. On the three occasions, the members of the House shouted against it.
It is titled “A Bill for An Act to make Public Records and Information More Freely Available, Provide for Public Access to Public Records and Information, Protect Public Records and Information to the extent consistent with Public Interest and the Protection of Personal Privacy, Protect Serving Public Officials from Adverse Consequences for Disclosing Certain Kinds of Information without Authorisation and Established Procedure for Achievement of those Purposes and Related Purposes Thereof, 2007.” It is otherwise known as the Freedom of Information (FoI Bill) because of what it seeks to achieve.
Introduced in the National Assembly in 1999, the FoI Bill has altogether 34 sections contained in 21 pages.
Although, the Bill was brought to the National Assembly in 1999, it was not passed by both chambers until 2007. In 2003, it was reintroduced. This time, four lawmakers were the major proponents of the Bill in the House.
They are Abike Dabiri, Duro Meseko, Depo Oyedokun and Emeka Ihedioha, all of whom are former journalists. Of the four, only Mr. Meseko was not re-elected into the House.
Mr. Ihedioha is currently the Chief Whip of the House. The Bill was handed over specifically to them by the external sponsors, Media Rights Agenda.
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