by Stanley Azuakola

One of the frustrations of ordinary Nigerians is the feeling that some people are above the law. Despite the words of assurances from various governments, the evidence on ground points to the fact that members of the elite select the laws to obey.

Still, it is uncommon to hear them openly voice out their invincibility. The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has done just that.

Now, Nigerians are still grappling with the fact that even though the oil company has been indicted not only in the people’s court but also in the now buried Farouk Lawan committee report, no official of the company past or present has been charged to court. Instead, a top management staff of the company was even appointed into the FG committee led by Mr. Aig Imokhuede, which separately investigated the fuel subsidy fraud.

To cap it all up, a Daily Trust report has revealed that the corporation believes it is not bound by the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and has publicly stated so.

Following a recent recruitment exercise by the NNPC, Daily Trust in a letter dated July 12, 2012 and addressed to the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, requested for information on “the details of the just concluded recruitment exercise conducted by the corporation as follows: Number of applicants from each state, points scored by each candidate at the test and interview levels, benchmark points set by the corporation, number of candidates that qualified with their states of origin and number of candidates employed by the corporation and their states or origin.”

But in a response by the company through its secretary and legal adviser, Anthony Madichie, in a letter dated July 17, 2012 with reference number CSLD.1099, the NNPC said that it is not bound by the provisions of the act as a “statutory corporation” by virtue of section 31 of the FOI Act.

The NNPC letter reads thus:

“Please be informed that the Freedom of Information Act applies to Public Institutions as defined under the Act. In this regards, Section 31 of the Act defines Public Institution as follows: “… any legislative, executive, judicial, administrative or advisory body of the government, including boards, bureau, committees or commissions of the state, and any subsidiary body of those bodies including but not limited to committees and sub-committees which are supported in whole or in part by public fund or which expends public fund and private bodies providing public services, performing public functions or utilising public funds.”

The letter also said, “It is our position that this definition does not extend to statutory corporations such as NNPC and thus, we are not bound by the provision of the act.”

The NNPC response is a setback for proponents of the FOI act who diligently pushed for the passage of the law for years in order to have access to these kinds of information. The law which was finally signed by President Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011, seeks to make access to information on government easy.

Despite NNPC’s defence, what the law actually states in Section 2 (7) of the FOI Act 2011 is that:

“Public institutions are all authorities whether executive, legislative or judicial agencies, ministries, and extra- ministerial departments of the government, together with all corporations established by law and all companies in which government has a controlling interest, and private companies utilizing public funds, providing public services or performing public functions.”

If the NNPC doesn’t fit into the definition above, then who does?