Sections
Poll: Power pledge
Is Mr. President's promise of additional 6,000 MW of electricity in 18 months achievable?
FOI Bill: Now is the time
Font size:
Obafemi Awolowo
Last week, the House of Representatives was presented with an opportunity of re-visiting the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill.
That opportunity was put on hold with the indefinite suspension of debate on the matter.
After many years of tossing the bill back and forth at the Senate and House of Representatives, and by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the bill returned to the Lower House for what obviously will be a fresh start.
The FOI Bill seeks to enhance accountability in governance by liberalizing access to public information. Opponents of the bill, mostly in government, are ducking under the opinion that after 47 years of nationhood, Nigeria is still too young for such a law. One of their excuses is that it would expose the jugular of the country to mischief-makers around media circles and bring her to her knees if state agencies are constrained to offer information that otherwise would be secret. This, they posit would spew out a regime of anarchy.
Such arguments as presented by opponents of the bill come crashing down when viewed against the political and economic stability that prevails in countries that have passed the FOI Bill into Law. India, Turkey, Argentina, Mexico are some developing countries that have done this. If anything, the law not only entrenches the political systems of these countries, it creates the environment for their thriving economies. Mexico, India and Argentina are among the world's twenty biggest economies by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Singling out the media as the red spot from which instability is likely to take root is not only drawing a red herring but also comes across that the men who make laws for Nigeria refuse to recognize the crucial and inimitable role the media played in our quest for nationhood and the role it continues to play in nation-building.
Need we remind them that great men of our nationhood such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and Herbert Macaulay owe their claim to success in the struggle for independence to platforms provided by the media? Shall we begin to recount how the embers of nationalism were fanned by the press to keep our country one? Or can any of them deny the active role of the media in engendering issues for national discourse?
This is one bill, in fact the very first, in our journey to the democratic promised land, that seeks freedom for citizens, the Media inclusive, to have access to public information. The FOI Bill if passed into Law, will provide guarantees for the citizenry against unfettered abuses of the Public Trust by political leaders and even sit-tight public servants.
Much as we know that the FOI Bill is not just media-specific issue, we believe that members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm have onerous responsibility to the nation and its people, to inform, to educate, to expose and to provide the road map for public opinion in matters of public and national interest. We appeal to Journalism alumni in the two chambers of the National Assembly not to rest on their oars until this important bill becomes a Law.
With Smart Adeyemi (former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists), Ayogu Eze (former Commissioner of Information in Enugu State) and Chris Anyanwu (former Commissioner of Information in Imo State) as Senators of the Federal Republic; Abike Dabiri, and Eziuche Ubani as Honourable Members of the Federal House of Representatives, among other knowledgeable Federal Law makers, we believe that both chambers will have all the insight, experience and education on the imperative of revisiting the FOI Bill and encouraging its timely passing into Law.
The nation, Nigerians and their profession will etch their names in gold if they succeed in this effort.
After many years of tossing the bill back and forth at the Senate and House of Representatives, and by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the bill returned to the Lower House for what obviously will be a fresh start.
The FOI Bill seeks to enhance accountability in governance by liberalizing access to public information. Opponents of the bill, mostly in government, are ducking under the opinion that after 47 years of nationhood, Nigeria is still too young for such a law. One of their excuses is that it would expose the jugular of the country to mischief-makers around media circles and bring her to her knees if state agencies are constrained to offer information that otherwise would be secret. This, they posit would spew out a regime of anarchy.
Such arguments as presented by opponents of the bill come crashing down when viewed against the political and economic stability that prevails in countries that have passed the FOI Bill into Law. India, Turkey, Argentina, Mexico are some developing countries that have done this. If anything, the law not only entrenches the political systems of these countries, it creates the environment for their thriving economies. Mexico, India and Argentina are among the world's twenty biggest economies by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Singling out the media as the red spot from which instability is likely to take root is not only drawing a red herring but also comes across that the men who make laws for Nigeria refuse to recognize the crucial and inimitable role the media played in our quest for nationhood and the role it continues to play in nation-building.
Need we remind them that great men of our nationhood such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and Herbert Macaulay owe their claim to success in the struggle for independence to platforms provided by the media? Shall we begin to recount how the embers of nationalism were fanned by the press to keep our country one? Or can any of them deny the active role of the media in engendering issues for national discourse?
This is one bill, in fact the very first, in our journey to the democratic promised land, that seeks freedom for citizens, the Media inclusive, to have access to public information. The FOI Bill if passed into Law, will provide guarantees for the citizenry against unfettered abuses of the Public Trust by political leaders and even sit-tight public servants.
Much as we know that the FOI Bill is not just media-specific issue, we believe that members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm have onerous responsibility to the nation and its people, to inform, to educate, to expose and to provide the road map for public opinion in matters of public and national interest. We appeal to Journalism alumni in the two chambers of the National Assembly not to rest on their oars until this important bill becomes a Law.
With Smart Adeyemi (former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists), Ayogu Eze (former Commissioner of Information in Enugu State) and Chris Anyanwu (former Commissioner of Information in Imo State) as Senators of the Federal Republic; Abike Dabiri, and Eziuche Ubani as Honourable Members of the Federal House of Representatives, among other knowledgeable Federal Law makers, we believe that both chambers will have all the insight, experience and education on the imperative of revisiting the FOI Bill and encouraging its timely passing into Law.
The nation, Nigerians and their profession will etch their names in gold if they succeed in this effort.
Add to:
del.icio.us |
Digg
del.icio.us |
Digg
Email to a friend
Print version
Plain textRate this article
Comments (1 posted):
Post your comment