From MATTHEW KALU, Umuahia

The Director of National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Abia State, Dr (Lady) Ngozi Okechukwu, has identified factors responsible for gross underutilization of the Freedom of Information Act (2011) designed to increase free access to information and reduce corruption and improve participatory governance in Nigeria.

Dr. Okechukwu who led a team of NOA management staff on an advocacy visit to the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abia State Council in Umuahia on Thursday, May 20, listed some implementation challenges impeding effective implementation of FOIA to include inherent deficiencies in the Act; lack of political will on the part of leaders, culture of secrecy of government institutions, low level of public awareness of the Act, poor record keeping and infrastructure as well as existence of subsisting laws that conflict with FOIA.

She explained that the FOI Act designed to increase the citizens’ access to information was intended to deliver more participatory forms of government, improve government delivery of goods and services, increase government accountability and reduce corruption.

“Apart from few FOI requests filed by some civil advocacy groups, the FOI Act is grossly underutilized,” Lady Ngozi noted.

The NOA Director said that the people to whom the law gives access rights were not proactive in using it to demand for information, lamenting also that there was little evidence of compliance by most government institutions as prescribed by the Act.

She, therefore, said there was an urgent need for increased public awareness and sensitization of the FOI Act in both urban and rural communities as overcoming the challenges of implementing the FOI Act requires efforts of all stakeholders to take responsibility.

Lady Ngozi explained that NOA was currently carrying out a nationwide sensitization campaign on the conduct of promoting transparency, accountability and stewardship in governance through the understanding and application of FOIA.

“In the NOA, we believe that through adequate orientation, re-enforcing the good ones, and discouraging the bad ones, the right attitude, behaviours, and values are inculcated. People’s perceptions are changed in respect of values worthy of being assimilated. There is the need to change the mindset through continuous sensitization of public servants who are the custodians of government information to appreciate the importance of entrenching an open and transparent society,” she said.

Lady Okechukwu submitted that “sincere implementation and open government partnerships, Citizens’ right to know is the pivot around which genuine democratic practice revolves, adding that the right to know and ensuring good governance, which the FOI Act seeks to entrench, requires that citizens and officials in public and relevant private institutions were adequately sensitized on the provisions of the Act.

“Citizens should know that the implementation of FOI is a two-way thing, you ask, and you are given. If you don’t ask questions, the government and its agencies concerned cannot proffer answers,” she said.

According to her, the advocacy visit to Abia NUJ was to create awareness of FOI Act and open Government Partnership with the goal of developing a dialogue mechanism on accountability and good governance between citizens and government to facilitate a culture of openness.

FOI Act, she noted, “is a critical ingredient that distinguishes democracy from dictatorship and defines the authenticity and vibrancy of democracy” because it gives citizens the right and free access to information that is held by the state enabled by legislation.

Increasing citizens’ access to information, Lady Ngozi stressed, would lead to transparency, accountability and good governance as the FOIA “contains far-reaching provision capable of transforming the culture of secrecy in governance that has existed in Nigeria’s public institutions.”

In his remarks, Chairman of NUJ, Abia Council, Comrade Victor Ndukwe, called for a review of the FOI Act, to make it work for Journalists, as the Act, in its present form, was time consuming and unsuitable for quick newsgathering.

Ndukwe urged NOA to take its sensitization and awareness creation campaigns to all nooks and crannies of the state and expressed sadness that after 11 years of its passage, many Nigerians were not aware of the Act.

He assured the Agency of the Council’s readiness to partner with it to ensure that the goal of educating Nigerians on the FOI Act was achieved.