Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the incoming president, has been urged by the leadership of the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) to make accountability and transparency the core values of his administration.
Describing the outgoing administration at the national level as a monumental failure in the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, FOI, which it said has resulted in a “legacy of secrecy after eight years in office”, the group said the Act under the outgoing government was “characterised by blatant violations of the provisions of the FOI Act by the vast majority of public institutions and willful disregard for their obligations under the Law.”
The organisation made this known in a press statement issued to journalists on Sunday by its communications officer, Idowu Adewale, through its Programme Director, Ayode Longe.
It called on the incoming president not to hesitate in ensuring the implementation of the FOI Act.
“We call on the incoming government of President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take proactive steps to ensure the effective implementation of the Act and allocate adequate resources for this purpose in the federal government annual budgets”, it said.
It added that good governance cannot be possible without transparency, accountability and citizen participation.
They also accused Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the Federation, as being guilty of trampling on the FOI Act.
The group described as “deeply concerning the fact that the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), who is responsible for overseeing the FOI Act implementation, did not make any recommendations to the National Assembly on how to improve compliance by MDAs with their FOI Act obligations”, suggesting that he was satisfied with this sorry state of affairs.
“The Attorney-General did not take any step to review or update the guidelines for the Implementation of the FOI Act, which was put in place in 2013 by his predecessor, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), in order to make the implementation process consistent with advancements in technology and various judicial pronouncements over the last 12 years, which could have greatly aided implementation efforts,” it said.
The group expressed sadness that over the last eight years, scores of public institutions spent millions of naira engaging lawyers to defend their refusal to comply with the provisions of the FOI Act and disclose information to members of the public.