Joyce Onwuka
Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has called on members of the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly across Nigeria to make greater use of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, 2011, as a powerful legal instrument for obtaining information from executive agencies to strengthen evidence-based law-making, improve committee investigations, enhance budget oversight, and promote transparency and accountability in public administration.
In a statement issued in Lagos, MRA noted that experiences from many other countries demonstrate that FOI laws are not solely for journalists and civil society organizations, but that legislators themselves can use them as statutory tools to reinforce constitutional oversight powers, particularly where executive agencies delay, withhold, or limit disclosure through ordinary parliamentary channels.
MRA’s Legal Officer, Mr. Monday Arunsi, said in the statement that although the Constitution empowers Legislatures to conduct oversight of the Executive through committee hearings, investigations, and other mechanisms, the FOI Act provides an additional and complementary avenue through which individual legislators and legislative committees can obtain official records and information for informed law-making and effective oversight.
According to him, “the right of access to information guaranteed by the FOI Act is available to ‘any person’, without requiring the applicant to demonstrate any specific interest or reason for seeking the information. Legislators therefore enjoy the same statutory right as every other person to request and receive information held by public institutions.”
Mr. Arunsi observed that many legislative committees often complain about the refusal of public institutions and officials to provide requested documents or to fully cooperate with oversight activities and advised that legislators can strengthen their position by invoking the provisions of the FOI Act, which imposes clear legal obligations on public institutions to disclose information within stipulated timelines and provides remedies where access is unlawfully or wrongfully denied.
He stressed that resorting to the FOI Act should not be viewed as diminishing the constitutional authority of Legislatures but rather as reinforcing the principle that public information belongs to the people and that all public officials are accountable for the management of public resources and the discharge of public functions.
Besides, Mr. Arunsi said, legislators actively using the FOI Act would also serve as role models for citizens, civil society organizations, journalists, researchers, and community groups by demonstrating the practical value of access to information in promoting participatory governance and public accountability.
Citing examples of usage of FOI laws by legislators in other countries, he noted that in the United Kingdom, MPs and members of the House of Lords have used the country’s Freedom of Information Act, 2000 to obtain information from government departments, particularly when other parliamentary mechanisms proved inadequate, adding that although primarily used by opposition MPs, they often combine FOI requests with parliamentary questions, debates, and committee inquiries, adding that the law has been especially useful for obtaining documentary evidence that cannot easily be secured through parliamentary questions alone.
Mr. Arunsi stated that UK parliamentarians have used FOI requests to obtain National Health Service (NHS) waiting time statistics, Government spending records, Police and crime data, immigration statistics, education funding allocations, environmental information and departmental correspondence and reports, noting that such disclosures have frequently informed parliamentary debates and committee investigations.
He cited other countries where available data show frequent or occasional usage of access to information laws by parliamentarians to obtain information to carry out their functions as including Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and Peru, among others.
Mr. Arunsi urged Nigerian legislative committees to systematically and strategically use the FOI Act to seek budget implementation reports, procurement records, contract documents, details of public expenditures, travel expenses by public officials, audit reports, personnel records, environmental impact assessments, policy documents, concession agreements, public-private partnership arrangements, and other records necessary for effective oversight.
He insisted that greater use of the FOI Act by legislators would contribute significantly to improving governance by promoting evidence-based legislation, exposing waste and corruption, strengthening fiscal responsibility, and enhancing public confidence in democratic institutions while also enabling members of the National Assembly to experience first hand how well the Law is working and determine what additional measures are required to enhance its effectiveness.
Mr. Arunsi called on the leadership of both the National Assembly and the various State Houses of Assembly to institutionalize the use of the FOI Act by establishing internal guidelines for information requests, training committee staff on the Act’s provisions, and integrating access to information strategies into legislative oversight processes.
He restated the importance of transparency as an indispensable element of democratic governance, and urged lawmakers to embrace every available legal mechanism, including the FOI Act, to ensure that executive agencies operate in accordance with the principles of openness, integrity, and responsible governance.