LITERATURE REVIEW on THE PERCEPTION OF FREEDOM OF INFORMAITON BILL BY JOURNALISTS IN BAYELSA STATE
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
Literature review is essentially what
author researches and what some other persons have said about the topic. The
perception of freedom of Information
Bill journalist in Bayelsa State.
This
chapter is subdivided into the following subheadings:
1. Conceptual
review
2. Freedom
of Information Bill
3. The
journey so far
4. An
overview of freedom of information act in Nigeria
5. The
challenges of FOLA. The prospect of FOLA and the Theoretical Review.
2.1 Conceptual
Review
Press freedom is guaranteed in Section
39(1) of the 1999 constitution. It provides hat “every person shall be entitled
to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and
impact ideas and information without inferences”
supplement to official Gazatte
Extraordinary, Federal Republic of Nigeria, May 5th, 1999. Subsection
2 provides for the right of private ownership of means of communication and the
press, it states that “... every person shall be entitled to own, establish and
operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.
(Nnanyelug and Okoro, 148).
Ufuophubiri (2007, p.97) concurs that
press freedom among other things enables the people to participate in matters
that affect them, confers powers on the press to be the watchdog and conscience
of the society, grants the freedom and rights of journalists to freely decide
what should be published and what should not be published and not to be
dictated to by an external body. Guarantees access to information of public
interest, gives journalists the right comment on the conduct of public
officials holders; enables the government to be aware of and to be sensitive to
the feelings and attitudes of the people towards government policies progammes
and actions. It gurarantees the people’s right to criticize the government
constructively though the press. Freedom of the press therefore, means granting
the press the liberty to inform the populace and be the watchdog of the
government without any open or subtle restraint or punishment for doing so
Ohiagu, 2010: p. 47).
2.2 Freedom of Information Bill,
The Journey so Far
In order to make governance in Nigeria
transparent and our leaders accountable, a private bill on freedom of
information was proposed and presented to the fourth parliament of the National
Assembly in December 1999, (Eme and Asadu, 2010 pg. 18). First, the House of
Representatives held the first public hearing on the Bill on October 3-4, 2001.
By August 2004, their efforts began to bear fruit when it passed the bill, from
there, it was transferred to the Senate.
The Senate Chamber held its first
public hearing on the Bill on April 26, 2005 under its committee on
information, after two years of deliberations and debated, eventually in
November 15, 2006. Senate also passed the Bill through a consensus vote.
Subsequently, a conference committee of chambers of the National Assembly
harmonized the bill on February 14, 2007.
The senate subsequently adopted the
harmonized version of the Bill on February, 2, 2007 and the Bill was transmitted
to the President for his assent on march 23, 2007. The President for this
thirty days within he is constitutionally required to give or withhold his
assent to any Bill from the National Assembly (Abati, 2007:54) Olusegun
Obasanjo, the former President however, withheld his assent, citing security
reasons and kicking against the title of the Bill. He said that title should
have read “a right of information”. The bill however did not get two-third
majority vote of the National Assembly to override the presidential assent to
become law before the expiration of the last legislative term in June 2007.
The bill was however re-submitted to
the National Assembly when it was inaugurated in 2007. But since, it has been
one controversy or the other especially in the two chambers. In the House of
Representatives, five time, the bill has been listed on the order paper, but on
each occasion, attempts to debate it had proved futile.
The senate, however, made matters
worst, when following pressures and agitations from a broad spectrum of the
society, it mandated the committee on information to look at the bill
critically, and make some recommendations before the bill is passed into law.
Of major concern in the
recommendations of the committee is the new section, known as section two
inserted in the proposed bill by the committee. Te section two provides that
“every citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has a legally enforceable
right to, and shall, on application be given access to any information or record
under the control of a government or public institution or private companies
performing public functions, provided the disclosure of such information or
release of such records (s) shall not compromise national security and that the
applicant shall have satisfied a state or federal high court of the need for
the disclosure of such information or release of such record(s) (Iriekpen,
2009:23).
The section to analysts is capable of
rendering the bill “a toothless bull dog”. The clause as proposed by the committee
will place an enormous burden on citizens who would require any piece of
information, records or document satisfy the court that the information would
not undermine national security and obtain the court’s approval before even
applying to the relevant public institution for the information.
2.3 An
Overview of Freedom of Information Act in Nigeria
With the military system of government
becoming unpopular throughout the world and democracy becoming the order of the
day, there has been increasing acceptance of the importance of human rights and
in particular of freedom of expression. For a country like Nigeria that had
witnessed decades of military rule where press freedom was restricted, it came
as a relief when the freedom of information bill was signal into law.
Virtually all government information
in Nigeria is classified as top secret. Longe Ayode of Media Rights Agenda
(MRA) of Lagos-Based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) says this veil of
secrecy makes it difficult to get information from any state urgency (Ayode
2011) Plethora of laws prevent civil servant from divulging official facts and
figures, notably the official not only for civil servants to give out
government information but also for anyone to receive or reproduce such
information. At the public complaint commission Act, the Statistics Act and the
Criminal Code amongst others.
Adeleke (2011) says the idea behind
these laws is to protect vital government information, but the level of secrecy
is so ridiculous that some classified government files contain ordinary
information like newspaper cuttings, which are already in the public domain, so
impenetrable is the veil of secrecy that government departments withhold
information from each other under the guise of official secret legislation.
There are also instances where civil servants refuse to give the National
Assembly documentation after being asked to do so. The results of this is that
journalists are denied access to information that is critical for accurate
reporting, and unraveling the web of corruption in Nigeria. There issues
motivated Edetaen Ojo along with other relevant NGO, to initiate the bill that
has become freedom of information Acts.
2.4 The
Challenges of FOIA
Since the enactment of the over a year
ago, so many challenges have been identified as impediment to its effective
implementation. These include amongst other things, the existence of subsisting
laws which conflict with the FOIA, notably the official Secret Act the Evidence
Act, the public complaint Commission Act, the Statistics Act and others. These
laws are contrary the provisions of FOIA, especially section 28 of the Act
which impliedly provides for the amendment or outright repeal of conflicting
laws. The poor culture of record keeping
and maintenance, retrieval capacity challenge in many public institutions,
bureaucracy in public service, service, as well as widespread corruption and
appealing ignorance among the workforce in the public sector also constitute
challenges to the achievement of the goals of the FOIA.
In spite of the merits of the act,
certain other challenges remain to be addressed such as the culture of secrecy,
the slow process of judicial review, the lack of political will to implement
the act and the fact that public officials still retain significant discretion
as to whether to disclose information under the Act.
Though lawyers have opined severally
that the provisions of FOI Act have tactically rendered the official secret Act
ineffective, the fact that it continues to exist over a year after the signing
of the freedom of information Act into law is an indication that some things
are not right. The Legislative arm if government has promised to repeat it but
by date, nothing has been heard.
The limited time frame of seven days
provided in the law for information to be provided upon request for access
which when compared to other nations with similar act is grossly inadequate.
More importantly is the challenge of political leadership. The corrupt
political leadership present yet another frightening challenge to improving the
flow of accurate, reliable information all citizens. At the heart of corruption
in Nigeria are those who wild political power and government authority,
“political and their business compradors and hangers-on are the kings, queens,
princes and princesses of corruption.
Agbese
(2008 p. 187), the corrupt leadership has refused to accept that the citizens
right to know is the life-blood of democracy and to take urgent steps to
improve the flow of information to all citizens. They even believe that the
bill will about giving so much power to the media and that such power could be
sued negatively against lawmakers (Garba, 2010 January 25)
2.5 The
Prospect of FOIA
The freedom of information Act is not
meant to witch-hunt government and public officials, but to proved the
foundation for transparency in governance and consequently and open society,
which will be the benefits of all sectors of the society, including the
government (Eme & Asadu 2010: p. 21).
Granting the public access to certain
information earlier termed classified information is crucial to the education
of the citizenry and enlightening of the public. Classified informative
material, collected or created by a government that is subject to limitation,
on its release to the to the general public, has restrictions on its handling
based on security concerns, and may have penalties for its unauthorized release
prior to the act, certain forms of information could be kept as “classified”
such that certain records were kept on a manner to present the public from
having access to it such as the official secret Act under section 1 subjection
2 by the provision of the FOIA institutions like the library are compelled to
make available every information in public interest. The official secrets Act is
often blamed for the obscurity in government transactions and ease of
corruption in Nigerian Government agencies. Section 97 subsection 1 of the
criminal code provides any person being employed in the public denied publishes
or communicates any fact which came to his knowledge by virtue of his office
and which comes to his possession by virtue of his office and which is his duty
to keep secret except to some person to whom he is bound to publish or
communicate he is guilty of misdemeanor Odigwe (2011). The FOIA Act in section
1 (4) states “A public institution shall ensure that information referred to in
this section is widely disseminated and made readily available to members of
the public though various means including print electronic and online sources
and at the office of such public institution” these brought the uses of social
responsibility theory.
If properly utilized the FOIA Act that
will promise transparency and accessibility. For instance, when government
officials know that nothing is secret, there will be less corruption in the
system. The press too stands to enjoy more freedom under the Act as there will
be better access to information.
2.6 Theoretical
Review
The 1947 Hutchins commission advocated
that constitutional guarantees of press freedom should include motion picture,
radio and television being the youngest mass media presented libertarianism
with many perplexing problems and so government regulation was required “in the
public interest”. This was how social responsibility came into being.
Social responsibility theory of 1963
by Siebal et al, originated from the work of the Americans- initiated Hutchins
commission (headed by Robert M. Hutchines) of 1947, which was a commission of
freedom of the press it is a 20th century theory which emphasizes
phrases like “the public right to know” and the public responsibility of the
press. The Hutchines commission talked about a “free and responsible press” as
being the backbone of this new effort. The question that arises at this point
is: Was the press found wanting in the
area of responsibility to warrant this new thinking? The answer is yes.
The libertarian era afforded the press
so much unrestrained freedom that it became careless and irresponsible thereby
taking its freedom for granted. The result of that free-market was yellow
journalism typified by character assassination and sensationalism. Press irresponsibility became the order of the day.
Someone needed to call the press back to order because the expected access to
the media by the individuals were not there, informational needs were not
served and new problems were being created by radio and television. There was
therefore an urgent need for some kind of public control to ensure media
accountability.
Social responsibility theory believes
that freedom caries concomitant obligation. In it, the press is to be
responsible to society by carrying out certain essential functions of mass
communication. As long as the press does not assume its responsibilities, some
other agency according to this theory, must see that the essential functions of
mass communication are carried out (Siebert et al, 1956). The theory tries to
reconcile three some-what divergent principles; individual freedom and choice,
media freedom and obligation to society. Two main ways have been generally
adduced as solutions for achievement freedom and responsibility of the press.
Firstly developing independent public institutions for broadcasting management;
secondly, further development of professionalism as a means of achieving higher
standards of performance while maintaining self-regulation by the media
themselves. The former is being heavily advanced.
Self-regulation canvassed by this
theory brings up the whole issues of codes of ethics prepared by journalists
for themselves. Merit and Lowenstein (1979) wrote that “a concern for ethics is
the key plank in any journalist platform…… the alpha and omega of public
communication”.
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