It has been 29 days since the governor Abdurrahman Abdurrazaq returned the Freedom of Information bill to the Kwara State House of Assembly for slight amendments before finally appending his signature for approval. But the kwaran populace assumed the bill has suffered a tactical death since the Kwara State House of Assembly has been maintaining absolute muteness about the legislative actions and inactions in the bill.
It is against this background, our correspondent contacted the founder of the Elites Network For Sustainable Development (ENetSuD)a pressure group that lobbied for the domestication of the bill, Dr. Alagbonsi Abdullateef to brief theinformant247 about the progress the Kwara State House of Assembly has recorded so far in amending the bill.
“It is almost a month now since govermor Abdurrahman Abdurrazaq wrote the Kwara State House of Assembly to do a minor amendment on the bill before his assent. And if you clearly study the response of the governor to the Kwara State House Assembly you will agree with me that the amendment is a minor one, because the governor suggested that they should increase the 7 days required for MDAs to response the Freedom of Information Request to 14 days and also to increase the 100,000 Naira fine to 500,000 Naira. And instead of making fine and conviction an option he told them to make the punishment both. So the governor wanted them to change 7 days to 14 days and 100,000 Naira fine to 500,000 Naira or to and so you agree with me it is a minor amendment and we never expected that a minor amendment of that nature should take as long as it is taking presently.
But we are a little bit patient with the Kwara State House of Assembly so that the meaning that uninformed people have given our agitation on the bill in the past will not be giving to it again. Afterall, they wanted the bill to be returned to the Assembly for their inputs and now the governor has noted the areas where he wants them to amend before assent, we don’t expect the assembly to delay the amendment up till now, but by and large we are in touch with the House committee on information which is in charge of the amendment of the bill, because the bill was referred to the committee to do the minor amendment. So we are in touch with the secretary and chairman of the committee.
In fact, we have scheduled a meeting with the chairman of the house committee. So the outcome of our meeting will determine our next line of action.
We are tactically silent about it because we want to meet with the committee to hear from them and know how far they have gone about the minor amendment or to even know whether they have started anything or not, if they have started they should be able to tell us what and what they have done and if they have not started they should be able to explain to us what is keeping them from doing the amendment since last month that the governor had written them and since the day the speaker of the house referred the bill to the committee for amendment.
I think by the end of tomorrow we will be able to know how far the assembly has gone about the amendment and that will inform our next line of action.”
The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Rafiu Ajakaye added that the bill was sent to the House to carry out some minor legislative operations and the designated committee will communicate its progress on the bill in due time.
Dr. Alagbonsi disclosed to theinformant247 that the outcome of the meeting with the committee on information was positive and promising as he was assured by committee that bill is receiving intensive attention.