The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) on Monday 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 to obtain information from executive agencies to strengthen evidence-based law-making, improve committee investigations, and enhance budget oversight.
In a statement issued in Lagos, the organisation noted that experiences from many other countries demonstrate that FOI laws are not solely for journalists and civil society organisations.
The MRA maintained that legislators themselves can use the law as a statutory tool to reinforce their constitutional oversight powers, particularly when executive agencies delay, withhold, or limit disclosure through ordinary parliamentary channels.
The MRA’s Legal Officer, Mr Monday Arunsi, explained that although the Constitution empowers legislatures to conduct oversight through committee hearings and investigations, the FOI Act provides an additional and complementary avenue through which individual lawmakers and committees can obtain official records.
“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,” Arunsi stated.
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Addressing the frequent complaints from legislative committees about public officials’ refusal to provide requested documents or cooperate with oversight activities, Arunsi advised lawmakers to strengthen their position by invoking the FOI Act.
He stressed that the law imposes clear legal obligations on public institutions to disclose information within stipulated timelines and provides legal remedies where access is unlawfully denied.
He added 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 state resources.
Arunsi also pointed out that legislators who actively use the FOI Act would serve as role models for citizens, civil society organisations, and journalists, demonstrating the practical value of access to information in promoting participatory governance.
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Citing global examples, he noted that parliamentarians in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and Peru frequently use their respective access to information laws to obtain government spending records, health statistics, and environmental data when standard parliamentary questions prove inadequate.
The organisation urged Nigerian legislative committees to systematically use the FOI Act to request budget implementation reports, procurement records, contract documents, details of public expenditures, travel expenses, audit reports, and environmental impact assessments.The MRA further called on the leadership of the National Assembly and the various State Houses of Assembly to institutionalise the law by establishing internal guidelines for information requests, training committee staff, and integrating access to information strategies directly into their routine legislative oversight processes.
