President Obasanjo Refuses to Sign the Freedom of Information Bill

President Olusegun Obasanjo has declined to sign into Law the Freedom of Information Bill sent to him for assent by the National Assembly in March. The President claimed that the Bill, in its present form, would undermine the security of Nigeria.

President Obasanjo made his position known at a meeting with civil society leaders in his residence at the Aso Rock President Villa in Abuja in the early hours of Friday, April 27, 2007.

At the meeting, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda (MRA), asked his intentions towards the Bill, which had been awaiting his assent since it was sent to him by the Clerk of the National Assembly a month earlier. 

President Obasanjo said he had not received the Bill but that in any event, he would not sign it for a number of reasons. The first reason, according to him, is that he is opposed to the title of the Bill, which is “Freedom of Information”.  He said the Bill should have been called the “Right to Information Bill” and that he had told members of the National Assembly this, but they refused to change the title and, instead, chose to retain the “Freedom of Information Bill”.

Mr. Ojo told the President that the National Assembly records showed that the Bill was sent to him in March through his Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, and that he may not have seen it because he had been busy with the electioneering campaigns. 

He contended that the title of the proposed Law was insignificant and that what was of paramount importance was the text of the Bill and what it seeks to achieve.  But the Presdient disagreed, saying the title of the Bill is very important, adding that we can only talk of right to information and not freedom of information. He said the idea of “freedom of information” was simply imported “from somewhere”.

The President asked the group if it knew that there are sensitive security information which cannot be released to the public. In response, Mr. Ojo argued that the Bill had adequately taken care of that concern as it excludes some categories of sensitive information, including national security information. 

He then gave the President a copy of the harmonized version of the Bill and pointed out the relevant sections of the Bill containing the exemptions.

On reading them, the President said he disagreed with Section 13(1) of the Bill which provides that “The head of a government or public institution may refuse to disclose any record, the disclosure of which may be injurious to the conduct of international affairs or the defence of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

President Obasanjo argued that the proposed Law only excluded from public access records which may be injurious to the defence of Nigeria, but did not also exclude records which may be injurious to the “security” of Nigeria, saying the defence and security of Nigeria mean different things.

Mr. Ojo told the President that before the Bill was passed by the Senate, the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on the Freedom of Information Bill, which worked on the Bill, had invited all law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies in Nigeria as well as other government agencies to make presentations or comments to it on the Bill and that although most of them responded, none of them objected to this provision. 

But the President said it is because “none of them practices security at the level at which I practice it”, adding that they did not therefore understand the implications of the terms.

Besides, he said, he was completely opposed to Section 13(2) of the Bill, which provides:  “However, in the interest of the public the court may override the refusal by the head of the government or public institution to disclose the information applied for.”

The President argued that this means that he can be compelled by a court to disclose any information which another head of state may tell him in confidence.

He stressed that he would never sign the Bill as it is and asked that it should be taken back to the National Assembly for them to correct these “mistakes”.

But Mr. Ojo told him that since the National Assembly had already passed the Bill, it would not be possible to take the Bill back to them. The MRA Executive Director then suggested to the President that if he had these concerns, he could send comments to the leadership of the National Assembly to express his reservation about these provisions, adding that he was certain that the matter could be resolved at that level.

But the President refused, saying he would not do that. He said he did not see why the National Assembly was being difficult on the matter. According to him, although the National Assembly has the power to make Law, he as President had the right to make inputs. 

Mr. Ojo told him that if those were his only concerns with the Bill, he did not think it was appropriate for him to “throw away the baby with the bath water” by refusing to sign it as there are a lot of positive aspects in the Bill that would help the Government achieve many of the things that the President stands for.

But the President again disagreed with this view, saying if the National Assembly overrides his veto, he will implement the Law, but that he would not sign the Bill into Law, unless the President-elect, Governor Umaru Yar’Adua, is willing to sign it into Law when he assumes office on May 29, 2007.