Public Hearing on the FOI Bill further Postponed To April 26, 2005
ABUJA, FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2005:
The public hearing on the Freedom of Information Bill which was originally
scheduled to take place on March 22 will now hold on April 26, 2005.
The date, which was first shifted on March 22 to April 12,
has been further shifted to April 26. The further shift in date was
informed by the leadership crisis in the Senate. Although Senator Adolphus
Wabara resigned as President on April 5, paving the way for the election
of Senator Ken Nnamani as the new Senate President, in the course of
consultations between the FOI Coalition Secretariat and the Senate
Committee on Information, it was agreed that the present atmosphere in the
Senate was still not sufficiently conducive for a hitch-free public
hearing hence the further shift.
Following the crisis that had engulfed the Senate over
allegations that some members of the National Assembly had received a N55
million bribe from the now dismissed Minister of Education, Professor
Fabian Osuji, to ensure the passage of the Ministry's budget for 2005, the
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Senator Tawar Wada, had
on March 22 announced to scores of disappointed stakeholders that the
public hearing had to be postponed.
Senator Wada had told Nigerians who gathered to testify
that the Committee was unable to get the Senate President, Senator
Adolphus Wabara, or any other principal officer of the Senate to declare
the public hearing open as is the tradition. He added that there was no
point in carrying out a shoddy exercise on the Bill as "what is worth
doing at all is worth doing well".
Following demands by some persons who were present, the
Committee agreed then that the public hearing should take place on April
12 to give time for fresh advertisements to be placed in the media about
the new dates and allow for adequate preparations.
Besides Senator Wada, other members of the committee who
were present for the aborted public hearing were the deputy Chair of the
Committee, Senator Rufus Spiff, and another Committee member, Senator
Usman K. Umar.
Some of those present included the Executive Secretary of
the Nigerian Press Council (NPC), Mr. Godwin Omole, who represented the
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Chief Chukwuemeka
Chikelu; the President of the Newspapers Proprietors Association of
Nigeria (NPAN), Mr. Ray Ekpu; and the publisher of the Punch newspapers,
Chief Ajibola Ogunshola.
Others included the Bayelsa State Commissioner for
Information, Mr. Oronto Douglas; Programme Coordinator at the Open Society
Justice Initiative (OSJI), Mr. Maxwell Kadiri; the Head of External
Cooperation at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ms
Juliet Ume-Ezeoke; Professor Pat Utomi, Director of the Lagos Business
School; former Kano State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice,
Alhaji A. B. Mahmoud (SAN); Mr. Bankole Bello, an Accountant with the firm
of Ighodalo and Associates in Lagos; and Mr. Tunji Olaopa, the Deputy
Director of the Bureau for Civil Service Reform.
Others were the Head of Information at the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC), Mr. Owei Lakemfa; the Coordinator of the Freedom of
Information Coalition, Mr. Osaro Odemwingie; the Secretary of the Nigerian
Guild of Editors (NGE), Ms Angela Agoawike; the President of the National
Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), Mr. Ken Ukoha; the National
Coordinator of the Zero Corruption Coalition (ZCC), Ms Lilian Ekeanyanwu;
the Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Mr. Edetaen Ojo; Mr.
Yusuf Kadiri, a Senior Associate in the law firm of Jackson, Etti and Edu
in Lagos; and Dr. Mustapha Hussein, a Islamic scholar at the Bayero
University, Kano and head of the Centre for Human Rights in Islam (CHRI)
in Lagos.
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