Moses JohnAbuja
Stakeholders at the in progress populace hearing on Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill yesterday said the measure would guarantee accountability, transparence and efficiency in government, and desire the measure passed immediately, just as the Senate President, Senator Saint David Mark desires libel criminalised in teh nation's statutory book.
The secretary general, Transparency In Nigeria, Mister Osita Ogbu, said that entree to information was an indispensable tool for fighting corruption.
"Corruption is not committed in the open. Secrecy in governmental personal business advances corruptness while openness and transparence discourage corruption," he said.
Ogbu noted that Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Nigeria had ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruptness (UNCAC), the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruptness and the ECOWAS Protocol On the Fight Against Corruption.
"The above international anti-corruption instruments, to which Nigeria is party, necessitate state political parties to have got entree to information laws," he said.
In a presentation, Mister Ladi Lawal, the grouping managing director, DAAR Communications Plc, said since the Restoration of democracy in Nigeria, the mass mass media had remained the most cogent tool for entrenching the tenets.
"The media, more than than any other professional grouping, is the lone organ with the capacity to simultaneously attain the people with timely information which determines sentiments about governance," he noted.
He said that the bill, when passed and signed into law, would advance an open, just and just society.
Lawal stated that the Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966 and had gone through nine amendments since then.
"The Freedom of Information law in the United Kingdom also have a long history. African states such as as Republic Of Angola and Republic Of Zimbabwe have got the law," he added.
He dispelled the fearfulnesses being raised in some living quarters that the mass mass media would mistreat the freedom being conferred on it by the bill.
"My response again is that the intendment of the law and its other commissariat of precautions should do to set everyone at ease.
"Any abuse of information by any journalist in the publication of falsity or libel, are actionable under extant laws in our legislative act books," he added.
Alhaji Baba Dantiye, the President of the Nigerian Club of Editors, also expressed sorrow that nine old age after the measure was submitted to the National Assembly, it had yet to be passed.
He said that media practicians could not be made to let on the beginning of their information because it would be against the ethical motive of the profession.
He called on the National Assembly to guarantee that the measure was passed before the end of the twelvemonth as it would take to truth and dependability of information.
The President, Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mister Ndagene Akwu, said the labor union had always insisted on professionalism among journalists.
"NUJ is aware of the fact that there are many aliens in the community and had insisted on professionalism," he noted.
In a entry by the Nigeria Labor United States United States Congress through Mister Olaitan Oyerinde, the Congress emphasised the demand for entree to the records of the Code of Behavior Bureau.
"When you do pay demands, you necessitate some information on it which are not easily available," he said.
The Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) also yesterday said the Bill if passed into law would cut down corruptness in the country.
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NLC, in its entry to the Populace Hearing on the Bill organised by the Senate Committee on Information and Media, also disclosed that to vouch good administration and democracy in the country, there was demand for a general atmosphere of openness and handiness of Information in the public domain.
The labor union added that "given the ill will of openness which characterised colonial and military governance, Federal Republic Of Nigeria have been saddled with a general head covering of terrible over information about authorities and its agencies. Much of this information is generally classified as top-secret."
According to the paper, which was signed by NLC playing secretary General, Companion Olailan Oyerinde, lamented that such as pattern have affected the mass media in respective ways, including fillet Populace Information that is reasonably required to transform authorities and its agencies.
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