‘Many people don’t believe FOI will work’

How would you assess the implementation of the FOI Act so far?It has been a mixed bag. Some successes and some challenges, as expected. I am one of those who have been at the vanguard of the process. Comparatively to many other countries on the continent, when you do a check of what the experience […]

How would you assess the implementation of the FOI Act so far?
It has been a mixed bag. Some successes and some challenges, as expected. I am one of those who have been at the vanguard of the process. Comparatively to many other countries on the continent, when you do a check of what the experience of implementation has been in Africa, you find out that the implementation in Nigeria is far above many of our contemporary African countries. Whether it is Uganda or Sierra Leone, that just passed its own, Ethiopia or Angola, in terms of some of the milestones, quite a bit has happened in terms of trying to put in structures to support the implementation of the legislation. If you follow closely, you find out that the AGF has issued two guidelines and one advisory. The advisory was issued in January 2012, which has to do with annual reporting, basically advising the institutions concerned that they have an obligation to report on their FOI activities. Suggesting a template that they should use in reporting.
What role does the office of the AGF play in the implementation of the FOI?
The office of the AGF has a co-ordinating role and to facilitate, if you look at Section 29 of the Freedom of Information Act , it is in that wise that the AGF issued the advisory on the annual report. Then followed up by issuing the first set of guidelines on the implementation to all public institutions and a revised version was issued February 2013 in quick succession. From our legislation history, many legislations have not gotten that benefit of close attention from the AGF’s office.
There is a provision in the FOI Act that enjoins the AGF to annually report to the NASS on the implementation of the act, but at the last ministerial press briefing, it does not appear that the minister has complied with that provision?
The office of the AGF has complied and there is even a website on the FOI held by the AGF office where you can find out about the implementation of the act. Because when the AGF submits his report, he is supposed to submit it alongside the MDAs reports. The MDAs are supposed to send their reports on the FOI Act to the office of the AGF on their activities in the preceding year and the AGF is supposed to collate these reports and send his own report to parliament not later than April of that year. So there is a two months’ window for the office of the AGF to put things together and forward same to the NASS. From inception to 2013, the Ministry of Justice has submitted its annual report on the FOI promptly. I am just stating the fact as it is.
If you look at Nigeria’s submission at the last Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, you would see that one of the accomplishments that the AGF was publicly laying credence towards the passage of the FOI legislation, although in some instance he overreached himself slightly by saying that departments of government have set up their FOI units because you and I know that that is not true. Some, not all of them have. For example INEC at that time and the Nigerian Army as well as the SGF have not set up their FOI Units as at June last year when a committee of the NASS held their interactive sessions with government institutions. But they made a commitment at that forum and I know the NASS and the SGF have set up the unit and we also conducted some training for them. Recently we also conducted a training session for the Nigeria Prison Service.
In your opinion, what has been hindering the setting up of the FOI Units in government institutions?
The Head of Service  issued two circulars. One, asking the MDAs to set up their own implementation committees and another one asking them to develop their road maps for FOI compliance and attached with budgets.
Many of these institutions did not do this as quickly as they ought to, based on the directive to set up the FOI inter-ministerial committees which in many cases have directors of the different departments of public institutions as members and they thought  that that sufficed for FOI implementation. That was also because of their erroneous understanding of what FOI meant. That FOI is all about answering questions put to them. But FOI goes beyond that because they have the obligation to display certain information even when not asked . This is not something that people can do on ad hoc basis. There are 40 different kinds of information you are required to disclose. Secondly, not only are you required to disclose those information but it is not a one-time disclosure. As the changes occur in terms of the content of that information, you are required to update that proactive disclosure.
For many of them, they feel that because they were not getting FOI requests they do not need dedicated hands to follow FOI issues and we are saying “no” your responsibilities go beyond just responding to FOI requests. In Nigeria, because of the level of distrust between the government and the governed, many people still don’t believe that the FOI system will work. There is need for proactive disclosure and when that is done, people will begin to see that the FOI is serious and working, which will build faith and confidence in them to now make their requests with the hope that they will get responses.
People have complained that whenever they visit the websites, they are always under construction, what is your response?
In 2012 many institutions did not make provision for FOI issues in their budgets, which is not an excuse but that was the reality they were saddled with because they said that the legislation was enacted May 2011 and many of them were not aware of what it meant until they were through with the budget. And circulars from the AGF and Head of Service came out at the time the process of 2012 budget submission had already passed. So it is only now that many of these institutions are beginning to make those provisions.
But from this year nobody should say that they do not know what their obligations are because civil society groups have conducted sensitisation and capacity building on the FOI severally. So the lack of knowledge that existed three years ago is not the same right now even though we are not where we should be, so the kind of excuses they were giving before would no longer be tenable.