MRA Holds Planning Meeting on FOI Advocacy

Media Rights Agenda will hold a two-day planning meeting in Abuja on December 7 and 8, 2005 to map out strategies for addressing the challenges facing the Freedom of Information Bill and seeing it through the remaining stages of the legislative process.  

The meeting, which will be held at the Royalton Hotel in Abuja, will be attended by about 20 representatives of various sectors, including the media, academics, labour unions, the Nigerian Bar Association, faith-based groups, government agencies, women’s groups and the private sector.  It is supported by PACT, Inc, a U.S.-based international development organization implementing the USAID-funded Advocacy, Awareness and Civic Empowerment (ADVANCE) Project. 

The meeting is intended to formulate strategies which will form the basis for future advocacy work on the Bill.   Participants at the meeting will discuss the current status of the Bill, review the outstanding processes before it becomes law and proceed to design an advocacy programme for engaging the relevant institutions and public officials to ensure that the Bill sails through these stages smoothly and becomes law in the shortest time possible.

The Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on August 25, 2004 and transmitted to the upper house of the National Assembly, the Senate, in September 2004.  It went through the first reading in the Senate on November 23, 2004 and a second reading on February 22, 2005.  It was thereafter consigned to the Senate Committee on Information for more critical evaluation and recommendation to the plenary.  The Committee held a public hearing on the Bill on April 26, 2005 and has written its report and recommendations which are awaiting presentation to the plenary session of the Senate.   

A broad range of stakeholders, representing a wide variety of sectors within the Nigerian society, made presentations at the public hearing. However, support for the Bill during the public hearing was strong and unanimous, although there were numerous suggestions about how to strengthen the Bill and ensure effective implementation. 

Following recommendations at the public hearing, several provisions of the Bill, as passed by the House of Representatives, have been revised or modified and there are now substantial differences between the version of the Bill passed by the House of Representatives and the version which will be presented to the Senate for debate and passage at the third reading. 

If the Senate passes the Bill, as proposed by the Committee, a concurrence meeting between representatives of the House of Representatives and the Senate will be required to harmonize the different versions passed by both chambers of the National Assembly before a final version is sent to the President for assent.

The indications are high that the Senate will pass the Bill when the report of the Committee comes before it for debate at the third reading.  The Senate President Ken Nnamani has been fiercely supportive of the Bill prior to becoming Senate President in April 2005 and has continued to demonstrate support for the Bill since becoming Senate President. During the debates at the second reading, he expressed strong support for the Bill, praised the initiators and insisted that it would enhance Nigeria’s democracy.   He argued for a stronger Bill, observing that the types of information exempted from the general right of access under the Bill were too many and the exemptions too broad.  Similarly, in his remarks while declaring the public hearing open as Senate President on April 26, he restated his commitment to ensuring the passage of the Bill.  

The Freedom of Information Coalition, whose secretariat is hosted by MRA, collaborated with the Office of the Senate President in June 2005 to organize a day-long interactive forum on the Bill for legislative aides, relevant committee staff and administrative personnel in the Senate, which Senator Nnamani also declared open, represented by the Information Committee Chairman, Senator Tawar Wada.

The Committee on Information has also shown strong support for the Bill. Committee Chairman Senator Wada spoke frequently and publicly in support of the Bill long before it came before Senate and has continued to express his belief in its importance for Nigeria’s social, economic and political development.  His views are shared by virtually all members of the Committee.

The vast majority of senators who have expressed an opinion on the Bill have spoken in support of it.  Support for the Bill in the Senate was also overwhelming in the course of debates during the second reading. 

The toughest challenge in the Bill becoming law applies to lie in persuading President Olusegun Obasanjo to sign the Bill into law after it is passed by the National Assembly.  The President has been consistently equivocal in his public comments on the Bill, although he has not disputed the necessity of an access to information law in Nigeria. 

Presidential assent is imperative if the Bill is to become law even after it is passed by the National Assembly.  The window for presidential assent after the Bill is passed by the National Assembly is 30 days.  If president vetoes the Bill or fails to give assent within 30 days, the Bill will return to the National Assembly and can only become law if it is passed with a two-thirds majority by the members. 

Mustering the requisite two-thirds majority in the National Assembly to override a presidential veto, while possible, given the level of enthusiasm within the Legislature and the fact that the Bill was passed unanimously without a vote in the House of Representatives, will nonetheless be a long-drawn process with an uncertain outcome.

The planning meeting will review this situation and propose strategies for what is hoped will be the final campaign for the enactment of a freedom of information law in Nigeria.