Edetaen Ojo - info campaigner

In Nigeria, neither the constitution nor the law gives people a right to information. It could make you cry, but there’s also a whacky side to it.
Activists seeking change have spent a decade’s worth of struggle in a topsy-turvy political landscape that would be comical were it not also tragic. But after all their work, Nigerian officialdom remains opaque, and there is no short-term prospect of relief.
This analysis was presented this week by Edetaen Ojo, of the NGO Media Rights Agenda in Nigeria. He was speaking at a conference in Accra, convened by the Carter Centre, to promote Access to Information around Africa.
Not surprisingly, he resorted to humour in describing
Nigeria, Ojo reported, has “many laws contain secrecy clauses prohibiting public officials from disclosing official information”. Officials are required to swear an oath of secrecy.
Unauthorized possession by citizens of some types of information is also a crime in Nigeria.
Activism led to a Freedom of Information bill ultimately passing through parliament in 2007, only to be stonewalled by the then-president Olusegun Obasanjo.
“He claimed that the Bill was never sent to him,” said Ojo. Nevertheless, the former president still said he would not sign it into law. His reasons, according to Ojo, were that:

• He did not like the title (Freedom of Information Act), preferring Right to Information Act;
• He regarded the exemption of access to defence information as insufficient to protect national security;
• He was against courts having the power to override a refusal by any state officials to disclose information requested.

Under the new administration of President Umaru Yar’Adua, the draft law has now been sent back to parliament … and run into even more problems over the past two years.
In the House of Representatives, recounted Ojo, there is a commotion that prevents discussion whenever the bill is debated. MPs have given “inconsistent and sometimes ridiculous excuses” for failing to pass the law:

- Civil society is too aggressive in the campaign,
- The media is too powerful to have such a law,
- Legislators have not been adequately lobbied,
- Why should a northern President sign this law when a southern President did not.

The Nigerian Senate has been even worse. Originally, section 2(2) of the previous Bill provided that: “An applicant need not demonstrate any specific interest in the information or record being applied for.”
A Senate committee has now replaced this with a provision that requires anyone applying for any information to:

- prove that the information will not compromise national security
- first satisfy a high court on his or her need for such information

Noting the obvious, Ojo remarked: “Very few, if any, ordinary Nigerians would be able to climb this hurdle.”
The Senate also expunged nearly all the public interest override provisions in the Bill, creating an absolute exemption of certain kinds of information from being disclosed in the public interest. Also scrapped is the protection for whistleblowers which had been in the previous version.
Ominously, the president of the Nigerian Senate also argues that criminal defamation provisions must be included in the Bill as a pre-condition for its passage. This is supposedly to prevent the media from “abusing” the proposed law.
There is some danger that President Yar’Adua could sign this amended legislation into law if the Bill is passed, and if he returns to active office.
However, the next round of general elections in Nigeria is only a year away, possibly less. And many legislators will concentrate on focusing on re-election rather than law-making, said Ojo.
“The prospects for a Freedom of Information Act under the present government in Nigeria look grim,” he concluded. Nigeria, he said, seems set to be left behind by progress in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
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From other inputs at the Carter Centre conference:
* Ronnie Shikapwasha, Zambian Minister, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services: promised that a long-delayed law on freedom of information will be introduced and passed in parliament this year;
* Kabakuma Masiko, Ugandan Minister of Information and National Guidance: promised that “sooner rather than later”, there would be an end to a two year delay in Cabinet approving regulations to implement her country’s access to information law.
* Zimbabwean publisher, Trevor Ncube: His country’s “Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act” does exactly the opposite. There is also “a political culture that has discouraged access to information,” adding that the private sector and NGOs are also guilty of not being accountable and transparent.
* Jimmy Carter (on what he has learnt from the conference): “That anyone in parliament who does not support a freedom of information law is a crook, and wants to conceal something”.

Postscript: I have also written about issues arising from the Carter conference here:

PBS Idealab and my Converse column for the Mail & Guardian.