|
Campaigning for Access to Information in Nigeria
A Report of
the Legislative Advocacy Programme
for the Enactment of a
Freedom of Information Act
June 2003
© Media Rights Agenda
ISBN 978 059 493 0
© Media Rights Agenda
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be photocopied, recorded or otherwise reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means without the prior permission of the copyright owner and
publisher.
Printed in Nigeria
ISBN 978 059 493 0
This
report was written by Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director of Media Rights
Agenda (MRA), and Maxwell Kadiri, Country Advocate for Nigeria for the
Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI). Comments on the initial draft
were made by Josephine Izuagie, Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of
Media Rights Agenda; Osaro Odemwingie, Coordinator of the Freedom of
Information Coalition; Fabian Okoye, Program Officer at the International
Human Rights Law Group; Ayode Longe, MRA’s Publications Officer, and
Johnson Ademoyewa, Campaigns Officer.
Media Rights Agenda would like
to thank PACE/International Human Rights Law Group for their support in
funding the writing and publication of this report.
Foreword
The first Parliament of the
Fourth Republic has ended its term and the second one has just been
inaugurated. It is thus time for an assessment of our legislative advocacy
programme. I believe that there is a wrong perception that the inability
of civil society organizations to get any of their bills passed by the
National Assembly in the last four years is an indication of failure in
the legislative advocacy programmes embarked up by the various
organizations, many of them supported by the International Human Rights
Law Group. I think this perception is wrong.
Given the intense pressure from
funders for “concrete outcomes”, many civil society organizations had been
pushed into promising that their legislative advocacy programmes would
produce the desired outcomes of their proposed bills being passed into
law. There is therefore a sense of despondency among some of them that
they have failed in their legislative advocacy endeavours. This view is
short sighted.
When the work of the National
Assembly over the last four years is reviewed however, a number of issues
become clear. The business of making laws was secondary in their work. As
soon as the National Assembly settled down after its inauguration in 1999,
it began to face a number of problems, among them instability of the
leadership, instability of the various committees and their heads, and an
inability to devote time to legislative work. In the several months in
which the crisis between the National Assembly and the Executive
persisted, the meetings held by the respective chambers of the National
Assembly were devoted essentially to devising ways and strategies of
fighting the Presidency and resisting its influence or interference in the
Legislature.
This battle itself was of
significant importance as it was part of the process of the National
Assembly asserting its authority and independence. For legislative
advocacy to make sense there must be legislative houses that are not mere
rubber stamp institutions for the Executive.
In this context, civil society
organizations failed to incorporate the crises of the Legislature as a
central aspect of their work since it had implications for their
legislative advocacy programmes as well as for the wider democracy
project. Since the issue was largely a political problem, civil society
organizations had a duty to intervene.
However, one major consequence
of the crisis was that only a few laws were passed by the National
Assembly, over half of them being appropriation and supplementary
appropriation laws. It was not only private members bills that suffered
from the situation. A number of Executive bills, including bills aimed at
domesticating various international human rights treaties, which Nigeria
has signed or ratified, were also never treated before the National
Assembly was dissolved.
The success of civil society
legislative advocacy programmes ought therefore not to be measured by the
number of bills that they succeeded in getting passed. What was most
important was that civil society organizations developed the capacity to
engage in legislative advocacy. Therefore, for many organizations to have
succeeded in introducing bills into the National Assembly, getting them
gazetted, following the bills through the relevant committees and in some
cases, actively participating in public hearings, have been tremendous
achievements made in the area of legislative advocacy over the last four
years.
One such bill which made
impressive showing despite not being passed is the Freedom of Information
Bill. For the International Human Rights Law Group, the Media Rights
Agenda and the Freedom of Information Coalition have been valuable
partners in the task of promoting transparency and accountability in
Nigeria. We hope that this partnership will continue during the life of
the current Parliament. The lessons learnt from the vibrant legislative
advocacy effort, which are captured in this book, will be valuable to
other organizations as they continue or initiate their own legislative
advocacy programmes.
Jibrin Ibrahim, PhD
Country
Director, Nigeria
International Human Rights Law Group, Abuja
June 2003
|
