By Usman Aliyu, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

When Nigeria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill was signed into law on May 28, 2011, it was heralded as a major victory for transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in governance.

The Act came after more than a decade of advocacy by civil society groups and the media who demanded an end to the culture of secrecy in public institutions.

The law stipulates opening up government files, empowering citizens to ask questions, and forcing public officials to provide answers.

Fourteen years later, the promise of the FOI Act has been partially realised, but not without significant gaps and ongoing challenges, especially at the subnational level.

States like Delta, Ekiti, and Lagos have enacted the law with records of compliance, but a recent roundtable convened in Benin by the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) with stakeholders across the South-South region, laid bare the troubling reality in other states of the federation.

The roundtable was part of the Strengthening Accountability and Governance in Nigeria Initiative (SAGNI), a CTA’s project supported by the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme (RoLAC) and funding from the European Union through International IDEA to strengthen institutions, empower citizens, and foster a culture of accountability.

This project focuses on selected federal institutions, departments in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Anambra, and Edo States.

Participants observed that in spite of its federal scope and the recent Supreme Court judgment reaffirming its applicability nationwide, the FOI Act remains more in theory than in practice at the subnational level.

Regrettably, the law is still treated with suspicion or indifference.

For instance in Akwa Ibom, civil society organisations report that government agencies routinely ignore FOI requests, delay responses beyond the seven-day legal deadline, or refer requests to higher authorities unnecessarily.

Faith Paulinus, Lead for Governance Reform and Anti-Corruption at Policy Alert, based in Akwa Ibom, explains how his team sent 180 requests to public institutions in 2023, but none received timely or satisfactory responses.

Even with extensive training for information officers, he said, the default reaction remained non-compliance, highlighting a troubling persistence of bureaucratic secrecy.

His organisation trained information officers and directors of planning, research, and statistics within various ministries, departments, and agencies.

Yet, when Policy Alert sent those requests to the institutions across the Niger Delta, not a single response from Akwa Ibom came within the seven-day statutory window or even at all in some cases.

He bemoaned that even those who responded often referred the organisation to the Attorney General’s Office or higher political authority, an indication of how poorly the law was understood within government institutions.

“FOI requests are not political; they are legal rights; but the entrenched culture of secrecy persists,” he said.

However, Delta has made modest progress.

Besides the enactment of the FOI law in the state, the government also publishes its annual budgets online.

Dr Rachael Misan-Ruppee, Founder of the Development Initiative for Community Development Impact (DICDI), testifies that the state government now uploads its budget documents online, a step forward in terms of transparency.

According to her, the FOI Act in Delta has enabled dialogue.

However, she said that actual compliance was sluggish as she rated the implementation a mere four out of ten.

“There is still a serious gap in awareness, especially among ordinary citizens.

People do not know they have the right to ask these questions and if they do not ask, government actors will not be pressured to answer.’’

Misan-Ruppee proposed an innovative solution such as making FOI compliance a key performance indicator (KPI) for civil servants.

“That way, information officers would be judged not just on form-filling, but on their willingness to respect the public’s right to know,’’ she said.

She believes accountability will only improve when civil servants are evaluated based on how they respond to information requests.

Elsewhere, legal confusion continues to undermine the law’s effectiveness.

In Bayelsa, some officials still claim that the FOI Act does not apply because it has not been domesticated by the state assembly, even with the April 2025 landmark judgment of the Supreme Court, affirming the nationwide applicability of the Act as a federal law.

For grassroots advocates like Princess Elizabeth Egbe of the Global Care Rescue Mission, based in Bayelsa, this misinterpretation is not only frustrating but dangerous.

According to Egbe, it reinforces a system where access to information is treated as a privilege instead of a right.

Granted, basic documents such as state budgets, once seen as off-limits, are now gradually being made public through sustained pressure, Egbe says more must be done to institutionalise openness.

In Cross River, years of legislative efforts to domesticate the FOI Act have stalled, leaving the law in limbo.

Felix Ikam, Executive Director of CHEDRES, recalls how his organisation supported the drafting of a state version of the Act, only for it to be shelved without explanation.

Compounding the problem, he said many state ministries and agencies suffered from weak recordkeeping practices, meaning that even when willing, they often lacked the data citizens were requesting.

Ikam fears that without political will and renewed civic advocacy, progress will remain slow.

In her own observation, CTA’s Executive Director, Faith Nwadishi, described FOI Act’s 14-year journey as one of ‘progress overshadowed by persistent opacity’, particularly at the state and local government levels.

She said that many public institutions still operated in a culture of secrecy, with some even demanding outrageous fees for information that, by law, should be publicly available.

Nwadishi cited a case where a public institution requested for over N1.2 million for documents that should ordinarily be online.

“Some agencies outsource FOI responses to private law firms; this is not just unacceptable, it’s a violation of the public’s right to know.”

Nwadishi, meanwhile, praised the 2025 Supreme Court judgment affirming the applicability of FOI Act across all the 36 states, calling it a “game-changer” that affirmed the national character of the right to information.

Quoting CTA’s baseline study across the FCT, Anambra and Edo States, she said that more than 70 per cent of respondents had never used FOI Act, adding that among those who did, 75 per cent had no response.

“The FOI Act is our strongest weapon against secrecy and impunity; it is not just a legal provision; it is the heartbeat of democracy.”

Nwadishi disclosed the plans to reopen CTA’s FOI Service Delivery Awards and a forthcoming hackathon in Benin and Awka to drive innovation in FOI usage.

“We need the media to inform, civil society to educate, the government to comply and citizens to act; let us not wait another 14 years to make the FOI Act work,” she said.

Observers say notwithstanding these setbacks, the FOI Act has created new avenues for engagement between citizens and government, especially in states where civil society remains active.

In some cases, journalists and activists have used the Act to demand transparency around constituency projects, health funding, and procurement processes.

There is growing awareness among some sections of the population that information is power; and that the right to know can translate into better service delivery.

Still, these gains are uneven and fragile.

Public analysts and FOI advocates have unanimously agreed that a lack of public awareness, institutional resistance, poor documentation, and absence of sanctions for non-compliance will continue to blunt the law’s impact.

They point that many public officers remain unaware of their responsibilities under the Act, and citizens, especially women, persons with disabilities, and rural communities, often lack the knowledge or confidence to make formal requests.

As the FOI Act marks its 14th anniversary, experts and stakeholders agree that the road ahead requires renewed commitment.

These awareness campaigns, they say, must be broadened to empower citizens to use the law.

“Public agencies must be compelled to set up dedicated FOI desks manned by trained officers,’’ they said.(NANFeatures).