ABUJA – After throwing out the 11-year-old Freedom of Information, FOI, Bill several times since 2007, the House of Representatives, yesterday, with surprising ease, re-introduced the bill.

The Bill, which was re-introduced to the House in November 2007, after former President Olusegun Obasanjo refused to endorse it into law before his exit that year, laid in the House for almost a year without attention.

But the Reps accepted to re-introduce the bill after a motion sponsored by Hon. Ita Enang (PDP/Akwa Ibom) and 21 others.

Citing 9 Rule 2 of the House, Enang noted that the Bill was brought to the House since November 2007 to “make public record and information more freely and available; provide for public access to public records and information, protect public records and information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy, protect serving public officials from adverse consequences for disclosing certain kinds of official information without authorisation and established procedure for the achievement of those purpose and related purposes thereof.”

The House Chairman on Rules and Business said there had been several new demands among Reps and from outside for the Bill to be given another chance. He then appealed to them to accept that the bill be re-introduced. Emeka Ihedioha, the Majority Whip of the House, seconded the motion.

When the presiding officer, Hon. Bayaro Nafada, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, opened the floor for debate, there was clamouring on the floor asking that the matter be put to vote immediately.

“I don’t think that there is any need to debate over this bill again,” he noted. He then put the matter to vote, and those that were in support were in the clear majority.

The Bill was then directed to the Committee on Information and National Orientation, and the Committee on Justice.
The committees were given one week to look into the Bill and report back to the House, with a view to organising a Public Hearing on it.

It would be recalled that in 2008, the House rejected passage of the Bill when it came for third reading.
There were several attempts to re-introduce it that year, but were frustrated by majority of members,

In January 2009, majority members of the House cajoled Speaker Dimeji Bankole to stand down the bill as they vowed to kill it when brought for passage.

That made it the tenth time the FOI bill suffered setbacks by the lower chamber.

The excuses given by House members, most of whom have not even read the bill, was that it was a media bill that would be abused by journalists.