Five months after it received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from a human rights and anti-corruption activist, Comrade Umar Ibrahim Umar, the Kano State Ministry of Works has issued a demand for the payment of N100 million to process the request for information on constituency projects allocated to and implemented by the Ministry from 2022 to 2025 across 40 constituencies in the State.
The demand for the payment of N100 million for the processing of the request was contained in a letter dated March 10, 2026 and signed by Mr. Muhammed Abubakar, Director of Legal Services at the Ministry, on behalf of the Commissioner, to Mr. Umar, the requester.
In a letter written pursuant to Sections 1(1), 2(7) and 4 of the FOI Act, dated October 10, 2025 and received by the Office of the Kano State Commissioner for Works on the same day, Mr. Umar applied for access to information in the custody of the Ministry relating to constituency projects allocated to and implemented by the Ministry from the 2022 to 2025 across the 40 State constituencies.
Specifically, he asked for
• A comprehensive list of all constituency projects allocated to or executed by the Ministry between 2022 and 2025, including the title and description of each project, the name of the constituency, the local government area, ward and specific community or village where the project is located, the approved budgetary allocation, total amount released for each project, and the year of implementation;
• The name and address of the contractor or company engaged for each project, the contract sum, date of award and completion period, the current project status (whether completed, ongoing, not started or abandoned), as well as copies of contract award letters, progress reports and certificates of completion where applicable;
• Access to the Bill of Quantities (BoQ) and technical specifications of each project, supervision or site inspection reports prepared by the Ministry’s engineers or officers, and records of any variation or amendment made to the original contract terms as well as copies of any internal monitoring, evaluation or audit reports on constituency projects, budget performance or progress reports submitted by the Ministry for the years 2022 to 2025; and
• Copies of any official circulars or policy directives guiding the implementation of constituency projects within the Ministry’s supervision.
However, in his March 10, 2026, response, Mr. Abubakar falsely claimed that Section 8 of the FOI Act requires an applicant “to pay the process fee in respect of the documents requested” and demanded that the activist pay the Ministry N100 million to enable the processing of the documents requested.
In an effort to explain the five-month delay in responding, Mr. Abubakar said in the letter that Mr. Umar’s request had been misplaced at the Ministry.
He stated that the Ministry was ready and willing to comply with the request but asked Mr. Umar to pay N100 million, claiming that the demand was in compliance with the provision of Section 8 of the FOI Act.
Section 8 of the Act provides that “Fees shall be limited to standard charges for document duplication and transcription where necessary.”
In his guidance to public institutions contained in the Guidelines on the Implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2011, Revised Edition 2013, which he issued in his oversight capacity under the powers conferred on him by Section 29 of the Act, then Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) comprehensively addressed and clarified the issue of fees which can be charged under the Act.
Mr. Adoke stated in the Guidelines that: “The fee chargeable under the FOIA is limited to the standard charges to photocopy and transcribe the records where necessary. Where the cost of copying or transcription is negligible or where the cost of collecting or recovering the fees would be equal to or greater than the amount being collected, you may provide the information at no cost to the applicant.”
The Attorney-General then went further to provide a “scale of fees” in a schedule to the Guidelines, in which he stipulated that the cost of photocopying or printing a document requested by an applicant should be a maximum of N10 per page.
