Information minister tasks N-Assembly on FOB bill

The passage of the Freedom of Information, FOI, Bill  is a task that must be accomplished by the National Assembly, the Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. Labaran Maku told members of the House of Representatives yesterday.

The Minister spoke at a budget 2010 review and 2011 budget defence sessions of the Ministry and its agencies, held by the House Committee on Information and National Orientation.

“You (the National Assembly) need to pass the Freedom of Information Bill, otherwise the media will get information unofficially and such information can be sexed up, and when they do that, it will cost the government more than if they were given officially”, he advised.

The Minister who called for a more media-controlled censorship body, explained that only an institution free from government control could check unethical practices in the profession.

While responding to questions posed to him by the committee on alleged media misrepresentations of facts, he suggested that “There are two ways to getting the press to do their job properly: You have to throw it back at the practitioners and let them censor themselves, because if you want a government-controlled body to censor them, they there will be a problem”.

In his reaction, the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Rep. Aliyu Wadada said “I don’t think there is any serious representative that will not support the passage of the FOI Bill”.

He however lamented that the piece of legislation has been in the National Assembly since the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo, and asserted that “if passed by the National Assembly, the law will not be negative for us as politicians and as a polity”.

Earlier, a member of the Committee, Rep. Patrick Ikhariale(PDP/Igueben-Edo) had criticized the ministry for leaving the National Assembly at the mercy of negative press on the true nature of constituency project funds, when it was supposed to inform the public of the fact that “Constituency funds are spent by the Ministries on behalf of lawmakers