As part of the Committee’s function, they are to
engage people from the public and private sectors, the non-government
organizations on how best to enforce the act to achieve the goals it was meant
for. “It is time for civil society organizations, and the public at large to
wake up and start enforcing this Act. Since the bill was passed 2011, we
haven’t seen much petitions from the public, especially the media hasn't been
up to the task” said the Honourable The FOI Act has been domesticated in Ekiti
State, while in Lagos; it has passed the second reading in the State House of
Representative.
The Honourable mentioned that the request for
information should be forwarded to MDAs (Ministry Department and Agencies) with respect to the issue at hand. Putting
things into perspective, Mr Adamu, from Kunguru village read it in the
newspaper that 20 million was allocated to the Ministry of Health a year ago to
build a primary healthcare centre in Kunguru. Meanwhile, no primary health care structure is visible at Kunguru. Mr Adamu is meant to verify the authenticity of the
news, afterwards forward a letter to the MDA responsible, which in this case,
is this Ministry of Health. Honourable Matthew further said, one should get the
information requested for in 7 days, and if otherwise, one can proceed to the court of law. Alternatively, “petitions can be forwarded to the Secretary, Committee
on Reform of Government, at the House of Representative” the Honourable member
said.
As much as analyst has taken down prospects of the
Act, the Honourable seems excited about the FOI Act, he equally stated that
states adopting the Act shouldn't be a challenge, since they all adopted the
former Official Secret Act, which has been replaced by the recent FOI Act. “By
2014, any MDA that doesn’t set up its FOI Department would not get approval for
its budget” confirmed Honourable Matthew Omegara. As much as the challenges of the FOI Act
remains conspicuous – such as information relating to national security, request for information exceeding the mandatory 7 days, and
bureaucracy in the MDAs, it shouldn’t make us lose sight of the fact that some
positives might come out of it. Some days ago, I was discussing the FOI Act with a Legal Practitioner, and he reiterated the fact that writing to any MDA alone to ask for information could put pressure on them. "Its one step in the right direction and I wouldn't want to say that all request might end up as a court case because most MDA wouldn't want to be involved in legal tussles" he said.
Several times, it has been said that, getting citizens to participate in issues that concern nation building isn't an easy task, owing to the grave loss of public confidence in the government. By the way, one may have asked, where are the CSO’s, media houses, investigative journalist that agitated for the FOI Act? They aren't sleeping, Right to Know has been monitoring the FOI Act, how it is been implemented, and perhaps sensitizing the public; The Media Rights Agenda, has also been holding workshops on the FOI Act for CSOs. What does this mean for Open Data and Open Development in Nigeria? It means Startups like BudgIT and Follow the Money could use this medium in tracking aid flows from the government to communities, at least to an extent, which could have never been achieved before.
Several times, it has been said that, getting citizens to participate in issues that concern nation building isn't an easy task, owing to the grave loss of public confidence in the government. By the way, one may have asked, where are the CSO’s, media houses, investigative journalist that agitated for the FOI Act? They aren't sleeping, Right to Know has been monitoring the FOI Act, how it is been implemented, and perhaps sensitizing the public; The Media Rights Agenda, has also been holding workshops on the FOI Act for CSOs. What does this mean for Open Data and Open Development in Nigeria? It means Startups like BudgIT and Follow the Money could use this medium in tracking aid flows from the government to communities, at least to an extent, which could have never been achieved before.
The Honorable mentioned how they have started the sensitization in regions of the country with support of UKAid, CIDA and UNDP. Sometimes in December last year, I attended the Ministry of Information sensitization on the FOI Act at the Nicon Luxury. Awareness and education on the FOI Act wouldn’t stop, however stories of how organizations have started enforcing the Act should be told, lessons learnt can then be used in decision making. In all, it was a pleasure, listening to those that make our laws on TV; the truth is that at long term, enforcing the Act can help in making information public, and also tracking funds that flow from the government to communities!
