When the immediate past assembly passed the Freedom of Information act bill within a whitespace of less than four weeks, multitude of people were apprehensive as to why the quodam assembly will consider passing such a bill at the twilight of her life while a majority were enthusiastic to know if the new government will survive her first test of transparency gospel.
Though, the governor is yet to assent to the Bill, In a manner echoing the comment that the bill may suffer negligence, the governor – and his handlers – has been avoiding direct reaction on the bill. Notwitstanding the fact that governor had not made any official communication to the house to register his opinion, some Kwarans have expressed diverse concern over the proposed law.
It will be recall that the former President Jonathan assented to it on Saturday, May 28th, 2011.
The objective of the Act is to make public records and information more freely available and to also protect public records and information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy.
The Freedom of Information Act also seeks to protect serving public officers from any adverse consequences of disclosing certain kinds of official information without authorization, and to establish procedures for the achievement of these purposes.
In Kwara, couple of reactions has trailed the passage of the bill, which has sparked a long war of words between groups and organisations. Some believed the process is questionable though demanding the bill be sent back to the new house for review. In a statement by a pro-democracy group, Kwara Must Change, they said, even though Kwara Must Change support the domestication of FOI, which it has pursued in the past, the bill they claimed requires some fresh scrutiny by new assembly.
They further explained people who are airing opinions over the credibility of the bill considering the adminisitrive process that produced it, which they claimed is faulty.
According to Kwara Must Change, the bill was presented to the State House of Assembly on 5th may 2019, less than a month before the exit of the 8th assembly and it passed 1st, 2nd and 3rd reading within less than 3 weeks, which they described strange to the culture of the assembly in its 20 years of existence.
Hamzat also noted that, the speed of the passage of the bill, call to question, the credibility of the process that produced it.
“In the history of Nigeria’s legislative practice, there has never been a public bill, which spent anything less than 6months before its passage and the fact that this bill was pushed in less than a month, from the date of its submission to the passage is questionable”
“It is important to state that, Kwara Must Change had earlier, in 2017 engaged the former administration on the need to pass the FOI bill without any response from the authorities. The same administration, which failed to act on the bill just 2 years ago, suddenly woke up less than a month to its exit to pass the bill in questionable circumstance.” – said the group convener, AbdulRasaq Hamzat.
However, in what seems to be a responce to the concern raised by this pro-democracy group, the erstwhile speaker, Dr. Ali Ahmad in a WhatsApp chat has claimed that the bill passed through the normal and required legislative procedure. Speaking on the timing, he said, “I was under the wrong impression that the Federal FOI Act covered the field (this is a legal terminology that where a federal law addresses an issue, it overshadows state law on that matter and for all intents and purposes, state law is ineffectual on that matter…) Now when I received the ENetSuD (a civil society group) letter, after initial hesitation I invited them and told them my belief.”
“They convinced me I was wrong. And I was convinced I was wrong. So now action has to be taken. Before I continue let me say one more thing.”
Speaking further, he claimed, “So when ENetSuD came, I embraced it. There were resentments from majority of my members. They called the NGO opposition. I told them: who said good things don’t come from opposition. They said they’ll probe us. I said we were in public office and not our fathers’ company. If you earn N1 of public fund, please be prepared any year or century to come back and explain. So I put up the machinery”
Reacting to the timeframe of the bill passage he said, “If you remember I single handedly moved 11 Bills in (single day at the) 7th NASS. You can pass a law in 4 or even 3 days. Quote me. Just follow the process. On whether it’s a booby trap for incoming administration, why do you think majority of my members and even staff were against it . It was a trap, they would willingly sign on. Ask ENetSuD, the day we were passing it, there was a gang up. Ask them. I only used my legislative experience bybapealing to them that we did t have to pass laws that only us like or disliked. We put this to kwarans. They approved it. We were their reps, who were we to override our principals.”
In related development, the brainbox for the domestication of the bill, Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD) a Kwara based civil society group has started an online campaign demanding the governor to sign the bill to law. The coordinator of the group on THE INFORMANT247 TV plartform said it doesn’t matter the assembly that passed the bill, but the impact it will aid in the governance of the state.
The civil organization also claimed to have tracked a lot of other federal constituency projects including those facilitated by the erstwhile senate president Bukola Saraki and other lawmakers and publicly air the good and bad side of every projects, but having difficulty getting information on Kwara financial management due to the non-domestication of the bill.
Weighing on the matter, an Abuja-based, Ilorin-born legal practitioner and the All Progressive Congress Chieftain, Barrister Senior Ibrahim Sulyman described the call for Gov. Abdurrahman to sign the bill into as a ‘dissipation of energy’, noting that the governor’s reluctance to sign the bill into law is not a constitutional wrongdoing.”
The statement read: “I have heard the hues and cries over the Kwara State Freedom of Information Bill which has not yet been assented to. It is not out of place not to assent to it because the position of the law as at today is the Court of Appeal decision which makes the Freedom of Information Act applicable to all the states in Nigeria, since that is the case, domestication of the FOI Act or assenting to FOI bill becomes an unnecessary dissipation of energy by virtue of the doctrine of covering field. i.e in an instance where the Federal legislature and the State legislature can legislate on the same subject matter and they did; in the event of conflict of laws, the State law will be void to the extent of its inconsistencies with the Federal law.”
“Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to advocate for FOI bill to be assented to; rather Enetsud and other similar civil society groups should take advantage of the FOI Act already applicable to Kwara State.”
Notwitstanding, another Lagos based, Ilorin born lawyer, Barr. AbdulSalam Abdullateef on his Facebook page said, “There is still some uncalled for expressions and politicisation of issues by some of our brothers or respondents here to the post on FOI Bill. We are in democracy not the dreamed or imagined dynasty so if the governor refused to give assent is not the end of the road there are options we at ENetSud could explore in furtherance of our accountability by public office holders. However, our siblings who are still hinging every issues with political colouration tilted towards their believe in personalities, whereas we believed in Allah and advancement of our Kwara like we are witnessing in other States in Nigeria.”
He continued, “Thus,our indices for assessment of government is performance not any sentimental attachment. Thus,the present government in kwara state must perform excellently to continued to win our confidence as if politically tomorrow is 2023 their exit point.”
Consequently, there is no more need to lay emphasis that the bill has topped deliberations in the political space of the state for days. The reasons for the governor refusal to sign the bill is still unclear to every gladiator, even though an unconfirmed source confirmed that the ministry of justice has given a go ahead for the governor to give his assent to the bill.
The governor who came on board with the mantra of bringing change to the lives of people and ensuring the judicious use of public fund should have no fear as to what the consequences of the bill might be- if he, indeed has no skeleton to hide in the proverbial cupboard.
Furthermore, since the bill covers entensively previous administration, it should be a good way for the enthusiastic people of Kwara to know how much public fund has been mismanaged in a space of 20 years. This indirectly answered the question as to why the bill is coming at the tail end of their adminstration- they can also be probed with the bill, a concern raised by most members of the outgone assembly at the initial stage of the bill.
It might as well afford the people (and organisations) the opportunity to report the financial activities of various board, ministries and parastatals to the governor independently, as he might not have that eagle eye to monitor every monetary transaction.
By signing the FOI bill into law, the citizens have been empowered to participate in the governance of their own affairs. The people can now legitimately seek public information, corroborate their facts and make useful suggestions towards achieving greater good for the majority. With access to information, citizens can fight corruption and closet government and confront the few who misappropriate our resources to themselves alone.
For the media, the signing of the FOI law will expand the frontiers of press freedom. No more will it be permitted for the journalists to hurry to press with half-truth and misinformation when they can officially verify their facts.
Should the Governor decided to sign the bill, it will be a great win for the people of Kwara and reaffirm the speculations that the governor actually meant business when he echoes the “Iseya” word.
Nonetheless, sending the bill back to the house, the governor should have enough concrete reason as to why the bill is not worth being passed and neccessary clauses worth a second look should be pointed out and made public – like the President did during the electoral reform bill ealier this year – otherwise probably maybe, it will be considered a major reverse on the anti-corruption and anti-financial mis-management crusade that brought the “Òtògé” train to power.
At this stage, it might not be difficult to point a finger at which organisation and individual stands for transparent governance and not “eye-service”, and who truly stand for a better Kwara and not only to see a end to Saraki dynasty.
The signing of the bill into law raises Kwara’s integrity in the comity of states.
Whatsoever the fate of the bill might be, Kwarans are eagerly waiting to see the good and bad side of it, the governor’s decision and reasons irrespective of the politics, guile and fact that surrounds it, but before any decision, let AbdulRahman have a deep reflection of the slogan that brought him to power!