Media Rights Agenda (MRA) today, Wednesday, January 15, 2025, accused the Federal Government of undermining the effectiveness of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act by persistently under-funding its implementation, noting that only one percent of Federal public institutions have allocations in their 2025 budget proposals for FOI-implementation and related activities.

In a statement announcing the release of its 22-page report titled ?A Vote Against Transparency: A Report on Allocations for Freedom of Information Implementation in 2025 Federal Budget?, MRA observed that only 13 out of over 1,300 Federal public institutions have provisions for FOI implementation in their budgets, with a proposed total allocation of N230,825,750.00, representing 0.000464 percent of the Federal Government?s budget of N49.74 trillion.

MRA?s Programme Officer, Mr. John Gbadamosi, said in the statement: ?There is a temptation to argue that it is far more important for the Government to spend resources on tangible projects such as infrastructure and other capital projects than on the implementation of the FOI Act. However, as noted in MRA?s 2024 report on this subject, without adequate investment in the implementation of the FOI Act to ensure that the government is transparent and accountable, all other allocations and expenditures for infrastructure, facilities or other development projects would be at risk and could easily be misappropriated.?

He insisted that ?the long-term benefits which the effective implementation of the FOI Act can bring to the country and its democratic process, including enhancing government transparency, efficiency and responsiveness; engendering greater public participation in governance, improving public trust and confidence in government, ensuring that members of the public have accurate and reliable information about how they are governed, contributing to the emergence of a knowledge society, among others, make it imperative that far more significant resources necessary to make the Act effective are allocated.?

Mr. Gbadamosi identified the public institutions which have allocations for FOI implementation and related activities as the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Federal Ministry of Works, and Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.

The others are Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Ministry of Environment, National Library of Nigeria, National Commission for College Education Secretariat, Federal Ministry of Steel Development, Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation, and the Nigerian Law Reform Commission.

Noting that the level of funding in the Federal Government?s 2025 budget proposals for FOI implementation and FOI-related activities by public institutions recorded a significant increase of 96.76 percent over the level for 2024 in terms of the amount allocated while the number of institutions with provisions in their budgets rose from 10 to 13, Mr. Gbadamosi insisted that the total amount budgeted for FOI implementation overall nonetheless remained extremely poor.

He argued that without adequate resources to support the full implementation of this critical piece of legislation, the FOI Act will become a symbolic but ineffectual gesture rather than a functional tool for transparency, adding that the persistent neglect of the FOI Act in enforcement and the allocation of resources is undermining Nigeria?s democratic practice and fueling the culture of secrecy and corruption that the FOI Act was designed and intended to combat.

Mr. Gbadamosi said: ?It is quite disheartening that nearly 14 years after the FOI Act became Law, the Federal Government has for the most part failed to provide the necessary financial, technical and human resources as well as infrastructure and political will to ensure its full and effective implementation, thereby displaying a clear lack of commitment to transparency, accountability, and good governance.?

According to him, besides the lack of commitment as evident in the persistent under-funding of public institutions for the implementation of the FOI Act, the Federal Government continues to condone the wilful disregard for the Law by the vast majority of public institutions as no single government ministry, department or agency has ever been sanctioned or reprimanded for flouting the Act, even when they disobey or ignore court orders mandating compliance with provisions of the Act.

He called on the Federal Government to be guided by the 12 specific recommendations contained in the MRA report, including allocating resources to the Federal Ministry of Justice to strengthen its oversight role of monitoring and ensuring compliance by all other public institutions with the FOI Act, such that it can assess the performance of all other public institutions in implementing the Act, track response times, identify bottlenecks, and gather a wide range of data on usage of the Act as well as compliance with various duties and obligations.

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