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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
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