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Senate Schedules Final Reading of FOI
Bill for December 14
The Senate has scheduled the third and final reading on the Freedom of
Information Bill for December 14, when the Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Information, Senator Tawar Wada will present the Committee’s
report for debate.
If the Senate passes the Bill, it will bring to an end the six-year
sojourn of the proposed legislation in the National Assembly, but will
still require assent by President Olusegun Obasanjo to become law.
After a chequered history in the House of Representatives, the Bill was
finally passed by the House on August 25, 2004 and transmitted to the
Senate for concurrence in September 2004. It went through the first
reading in the Senate on November 23, 2004 and a second reading on
February 22, 2005. It was thereafter committed to the Senate Committee on
Information for more critical evaluation and recommendation to the plenary
with a directive that the Committee should report back to the plenary
within three weeks.
However, the public hearing organized by the Senate for public inputs into
the Bill suffered several delays. The Committee initially decided to hold
a public hearing on March 15 this year. But the date was changed to March
22 as a result of the death early in March of the mother of the chairman
of the Committee on Information, Senator Wada (representing Gombe South
Senatorial District).
On March 22, the crisis over the N55 million bribery scandal involving the
then Senate President Adolphus Wabara and former Education Minister,
Professor Fabian Osuji, blew open. The public hearing was to have been
declared open by Senator Wabara, but he was in no mood to perform this
function, while the Senate itself was engulfed in the crisis. After
waiting for several hours for the Senate President or another principal
officer of the Senate to declare the public hearing open, Senator Wada
announced its postponement to April 12.
However, on April 5, Senate Wabara resigned as Senate President in the
continuing crisis over the bribery scandal while Senator Ken Nnamani was
elected to replace him. But the Information Committee decided that the
prevailing political atmosphere was not conducive to having a hitch-free
public hearing as scheduled and again moved it to April 26, when it
finally took place.
A broad range of stakeholders, representing a wide variety of sectors
within the Nigerian society, including the business sector, trade unions,
the academia, religious bodies, the media, the legal profession, other
professional bodies, the civil service, and human rights groups made
presentations at the public hearing and expressed unanimous support for
the Bill. They all urged the Senate to pass it as soon as possible,
although there were numerous suggestions about how to strengthen the Bill
and ensure its effective implementation.
In line with the recommendations at the public hearing, the Information
Committee has revised several provisions of the Bill, as passed by the
House of Representatives. At the scheduled third reading, Senator Wada
will be presenting the revised version of the Bill to his colleagues at
the plenary session of the Senate on December 14 for consideration.
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