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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.
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