Opinion
 

Senate Can End Culture of Secrecy

By

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu & Ene Enonche

In the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill now before it, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has an opportunity in a generation to change the culture of secrecy that pervades government business and feeds corruption. Our distinguished Senators must grasp this challenge with energy, imagination, and a sense of historical moment.

The FoI Bill went through first reading in the Senate on the 23 November 2004. It still has to pass through second reading, committee stage, and third reading before it is finally ready to be transmitted to the President for his assent. Prior to being transmitted to the Senate, the House of Representatives passed the Bill on August 25 2004.

There is a sense of urgency about the need to end the culture of secrecy in our public life and the culture of public corruption that it makes possible. It affects all of us adversely. It damages the image of Nigerians and all who claim Nigeria’s patrimony. It damages our economy and our public purse. And it sustains crooked public institutions that in turn give the country an international reputation for anarchical impunity.

Passing the FoI Bill will not wipe all these away in one moment. But it will for the first time provide a firm basis for addressing them. The Executive arm of government acknowledges this in its National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) document. Chapter 6 of the NEEDS document prioritizes the Right to Information Act as one of two flagship legislative interventions to underpin Nigeria’s economic transformation. The other is a Fiscal Responsibility Bill, already under consideration by the federal legislature. The NEEDS document argues that “the Right to Information Act will engender openness and feedback through a process of streamlining and rationalizing the system for information collection, collation, storage, and dissemination on a timely basis” in addressing what the document calls a culture of “corruption and abuse of positions and privileges”. Under the NEEDS calendar of accomplishments, this Bill should have been passed in 2004.

Eliminating public sector secrecy, ensuring accountable governance, and addressing corruption are three of the advantages of this Bill. How will the FoI Bill accomplish these? For the first time, it will make possible access to public documents, thereby easing the perennial problem of proof of public graft or mis-conduct. It will put Nigerians in a position to make informed and constructive demands on government as to how public resources are best utilized and allocated. It will transform the psyche of public officials and bureaucrats, evidence of whose conduct will, for the first time be accessible to Nigerians as an entitlement. An FoI regime will enrich the oversight role of the legislatures, both federal and state, guaranteeing easier and richer access to the treasure trove of public records that are presently governed by our regime of bureaucratic omerta.

The FoI Bill also has direct economic benefits. The new system of information classification and storage to be created by it will provide jobs and be a catalyst for entrepreneurial activities in the management of public records and access to them. It will provide new revenue streams for public policy, information management, policy research, and legal professionals, amongst many others. It will also reform the cultures of insider and preferential transactions that currently govern public sector contracting, heralding a new era of transparent competition and value-for-money outcomes to Nigerians. In turn, this should encourage foreign investment by increasing international confidence in the governance of business and investment in Nigeria. In passing the FoI Bill, the Senate will be saying quite firmly and clearly that Nigeria PLC is open for business both with its citizens and for the rest of the world. This kind of statement is long overdue.

The FoI Bill has been drawn up carefully to address concerns related to costs, national security, and protection of personal information. The new FoI regime will be self-financing. Reasonable fees will be charged for access to documents under it. It recognizes and provides for safeguards against unrestricted access to documents of institutions related to national security or on going investigations by the Police or other law enforcement institutions. It also protects against disclosure or public access to personal information held by public institutions. The bill also contains whistle blower protections for public officers who engineer public disclosure of official information or mis-conduct that is adverse to the public good faith.

The FoI Bill is possibly the oldest legislative proposal on the books of the National Assembly. For such a strategic piece of legislation, it has been made to tarry unnecessarily for the attention of our distinguished Senators. This Bill one of the earliest measures gazetted for consideration by the immediate past National Assembly, it became one of the victims of the many political battles of that legislature. Having failed to make it onto the statute books then, proponents of the Bill revived it for consideration by the current legislature. These proponents include an umbrella coalition of civil society groups known as the Freedom of Information Coalition, organized business sector and labour, and organized media and journalistic professionals. They have been assisted and guided by many members of both Chambers of the National Assembly who have taken an active interest in the passage of the Bill, especially in the current legislature. Public acknowledgement of these legislators is best deferred to another medium and another time.

The capacity of government to deliver public services and guarantee access to the goods of the public space are the basic criteria for judging open and democratic societies. These are guaranteed by the public’s right of access to publicly held information. This right is also a necessary tool of development. Every country evolves its own FoI regime to address its own brand of problems. There are 59 such regimes around the world, coincidentally also, found in the most developed countries in the world. It is not an accident that South Africa, the only African country with an FoI regime, is also the continent’s most developed. On these terms, Nigeria has a lot of catching up to do. In passing the FoI Bill, the Senate can set Nigeria on a fast track into this elite club.

 Chidi Odinkalu & Ene Enonche are Africa Programme Director and Project Consultant respectively, with the Open Society Justice Initiative, 11 Amazon Street, Abuja. E-mail: Codinkalu@justiceinitiative.org; eenonche@yahoo.co.uk