Nine years after the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) was promulgated, stakeholders in the media industry have expressed concern over journalists’ inability to use the act efficiently. FakeNews Media Journalism FreedomOfInformation
Many of them argued that COVID-19 pandemic and the corruption in high places that are being unveiled by the day were enough to show that journalists were not doing enough.
Professor of Applied Communication, University of Ibadan, Ayobami Ojebode, said, “the FOI is a good piece of legislation but no legislation can change anything if it does not have the sympathy of the judiciary. The judiciary, in my view, has not supported FOI Act related matters well enough. There are also existing laws such as, the Official Secret Act that directly conflict with the FOI Act. These laws support refusal to release information; FOI Act forbids refusal to release information.
Ojebode expressed optimism that someday, Nigerian leaders would be civil enough to be too ashamed to be found on such a list and so they would hate to obstruct FOI Act request. While saying it gives room for adequate planning, asked, “if you don’t know the numbers of people in your country, how can you plan?”
The Programmes Director, Media Rights Agenda , Ayo Longe, said the media has a potent tool that is just lying fallow.
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