Culture of Secrecy in Governance is stale

During colonial rule, the British evolved a convention that Nigerian public servants were expected to be seen but not heard. The convention facilitated the inclusion in the General Orders and later the Public Service Rules (PSR), the requirement for public servants to take oaths of secrecy not to disclose any information obtained in the course […]

During colonial rule, the British evolved a convention that Nigerian public servants were expected to be seen but not heard. The convention facilitated the inclusion in the General Orders and later the Public Service Rules (PSR), the requirement for public servants to take oaths of secrecy not to disclose any information obtained in the course of their duties. The pioneer civil servants imbibed the convention and handed down to posterity, the culture of secrecy for official business in Nigeria. To give legal backing to the scheme, the Official Secrets Act and the Protection of Public Officers Act were put in place to scare anyone away from breaching the convention. The result was that in an attempt not to run fowl of the law, the term ‘secret’ was stamped in the sub consciousness of government officials.
 Other former colonies suffered and are still suffering the same fate. In Kenya, the International Advisory Commission of the Human Rights Initiative found in 2003, that “a file full of nothing more than newspaper cuttings was marked as ‘very confidential’ and access to it was denied without the permission of the Permanent Secretary”. Indeed, several public service documents in Nigeria still carry bold inscriptions such as ‘official’, ‘private’, ‘top secret’, ‘confidential’ etc. when in reality; some of them contain only cosmetic subjects such as a list of approved public holidays!
Interestingly, the Europeans who introduced the concept of secrecy in governance have since abandoned the idea because it negates a free society. In Nigeria however, it may not be easy to overcome the culture of treating public matters as secret considering how we have just handled the nomination of ministers. There was the funny make-belief that apart from the President no one else knew how the process started and ended until the names were unveiled in the Senate. There is even the story that those nominated got to know about it only when the names were made public! One of the nominees, Dr, Kayode Fayemi, a former Governor of Ekiti State told newsmen at the National Headquarters of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja last Tuesday, that notwithstanding his closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari, the President never gave him a hint about his plans on the issue.
In Fayemi’s words, “to the extent that I was not told by the President that I was going to be on his list; yes, it came as a surprise. The president is a surprise master; let me put it that way. He did not tell anyone to the best of my knowledge and I would have thought that I was in a vantage position to know more than others. I was with him for five days before then. I was with him in New York at the United Nations General Assembly, and he never uttered a word about his list to me nor to anyone else.”
As part of the convention of secrecy, the list which was to be made public on September 30 as promised by government was ready and was dispatched to the senate but it could not be immediately disclosed because the Senate had adjourned before the secret document reportedly got to it. As if not to break the chain of secrecy, Senate President Saraki ensured that no one saw its contents until 10.45 am on Tuesday October 05, 2015 when the full Senate was in session. Hmmm! An analyst who may have monitored the process is likely to doubt the authenticity of the scenes of the entire drama episode.  To start with, our people say a subject known to more than one person cannot be regarded as a secret.
The fact that the document containing the list of ministers was typed by someone and probably proof-read by someone else and perhaps sealed by yet another person punctures the secrecy story. In actual fact, the level of bad press which some of the nominees got so as to keep them off the list shows that the episode was an open secret. In Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Government hurriedly organized a probe panel to expose Amaechi’s alleged ills. At the same time, strong supporters of the government’s standpoint used advertisements and documentaries to organize media trial of what the panel was supposedly probing.
In the case of Fashola, those against his ministerial nomination found their way into the state government’s website to announce his perceived corrupt practices. In addition, a group-the ‘Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders’ sent a petition to the Senate before the list was made public asking it not to confirm Fashola “should his name pop-up as a ministerial nominee.” In the petition, the group urged the senators to visit Lagos, as governed by Fashola, before screening and confirming him for any appointment as a minister. Meanwhile, to some people including this writer, that Fashola did quite well as Governor of Lagos State is a notorious fact. If those who maligned Rotimi Amaechi and Babatunde Fashola ostensibly to spoil their chances merely suspected that they might be made ministers, it is instructive that their suspicion was accurate. So, whither secrecy?
Again, it could not have been a mere coincidence that when the list was eventually released what it contained was not different from the one the social media released and copiously analysed before the list was made public. Thus, people in authority who often suffocate the public media should note that whatever they keep away from the media they control is available on the internet. What this suggests, is that the culture of secrecy bequeathed by the colonial administration to Nigeria is stale and should be done away with. 
Indeed, Nigeria having since 2011, joined those countries that have legislated unhindered access to public information has no business holding-on to secrecy as a framework of governance. Rather, what is begging to be done now is for the country to quickly institutionalize the modalities for open government by ensuring that any information of public interest is not shrouded in secrecy. It is the most obvious way for government to be accountable to its people.