PRESS RELEASE: The attention of Kwara Must Change has been drawn to some publications on social media, questioning the position of the group on the proposed Freedom of Information bill.
We would like to maintain that, nobody can blackmail us over a bill that was passed through a questionable process, unless anyone can show us a similar bill passed in the past through such questionable process.
Kwara Must Change had earlier urged the Kwara State governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq to return the foi bill to the 9th assembly for fresh scrutiny over credibility issue and we maintain that the 3 weeks bill is align to our legislative practice in its 20 years of existence.
We would like to state that, democracy is all about due process and when due process is compromised, whatever product that comes from such process will always be questionable.
Even in human engagement, such questionable process is probed.
For example, as much as child bearing is a blessing that every human often desire, whenever a child is born through questionable process, such child is often described with negative terminology, such as unwanted child, bastard etc. We must however note that, the negative attachment to such child has nothing to do with the child or his future wellbeing; rather, it is just about the process that produced it into this world.
The same can be said of this current Foi. The bill was produced by a questionable process and Kwara Must Change demand a fresh scrutiny by the new assembly to remove any doubt.
It is important to state, long before any group saw the need for foi to be domesticated in Kwara State, Kwara Must Change had been on it, in as far back as 2017.
We must also add that,we didn’t only advocate for the Foi bill, we also called for the domestication of the newly enacted Administration of Criminal Justice (ACJA).
However, due to political consideration, the past administration didn’t see the need to pass it at the time. It is an irony that the same administration, which didn’t see the need to look into the bill almost 3 years ago when they had all the time, suddenly woke up after they had lost election to bastardize the process.
We are of the view that the 8th assembly was a discredited assembly, most of its members were discredited individuals, the process adopted to pass the bill was discredited and the end product also stands as such.
We therefore reaffirm our position that the foi bill be returned to the 9th assembly for fresh scrutiny.
Comrade Yusuf Olatunji
State Coordinator
Kwara Must Change