Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has 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 for obtaining information from executive agencies to strengthen evidence-based law-making, improve committee investigations, enhance budget oversight, and promote transparency and accountability in public administration.
In a statement issued in Lagos, MRA noted that experiences from many other countries demonstrate that FOI laws are not solely for journalists and civil society organisations, but that legislators themselves can use them as statutory tools to reinforce constitutional oversight powers, particularly where executive agencies delay, withhold, or limit disclosure through ordinary parliamentary channels.
MRA’s Legal Officer, Mr Monday Arunsi, said in the statement that although the Constitution empowers Legislatures to conduct oversight of the Executive through committee hearings, investigations, and other mechanisms, the FOI Act provides an additional and complementary avenue through which individual legislators and legislative committees can obtain official records and information for informed law-making and effective oversight.
According to him, “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 observed that many legislative committees often complain about the refusal of public institutions and officials to provide requested documents or to cooperate with oversight activities fully and advised that legislators can strengthen their position by invoking the provisions of the FOI Act, which imposes clear legal obligations on public institutions to disclose information within stipulated timelines and provides remedies where access is unlawfully or wrongfully denied.
He stressed 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 public resources and the discharge of public functions.
Besides, Arunsi said, legislators actively using the FOI Act would also serve as role models for citizens, civil society organisations, journalists, researchers, and community groups by demonstrating the practical value of access to information in promoting participatory governance and public accountability.
Citing examples of usage of FOI laws by legislators in other countries, he noted that in the United Kingdom, MPs and members of the House of Lords have used the country’s Freedom of Information Act, 2000 to obtain information from government departments, particularly when other parliamentary mechanisms proved inadequate, adding that although primarily used by opposition MPs, they often combine FOI requests with parliamentary questions, debates, and committee inquiries.
