A Civil Society Organization (CSO) on Saturday urged the Kwara House of Assembly (KWHA) to pass the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill.
The Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD), an anti-corruption CSO promoting good governance, transparency and accountability, made the call in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Dr Abdullateef Alagbonsi.
The organization said the FoI law was part of the gifts and gains of democracy that Nigerians are celebrating today.
According to the statement, delaying the passage of the bill by the legislature is like refusing to legalize free access for residents to public information that will lead to a citizen-focused on anti-corruption fight in the state.
It recalled that the state governor had on July 23, 2019, requested the KWHA to do a minor amendment on the FoI Bill before he assented to it, but the house had failed to attend to the bill promptly.
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The statement said that the anti-corruption body had considered the inaction of the assembly as a show of legislative “rascality, which is anti-democratic, anti-transparency and anti-accountability’’.
The ENetSuD wondered why it had taken the legislators about two years without changing “seven days to 14 days, and N100,000 to N500,000” as requested before the governor’s assent.
It asked what the KWHA could say as its achievement in the “area of open governance, transparency and accountability during its 9th Assembly’’.
The statement, therefore, advised the Assembly to urgently pass the FoI bill in the interest of good governance.
