President Muhammadu Buhari has been away from the country on a medical leave for close to 4 months now and Nigerians have only had to look to media aides for up-to-date information on his health status.

There’s no telling how that has fared. We’ve been pushed around, accused of being disrespectful for our inquisitiveness, been fed lies and whatnots. A day ago, new and unconfirmed reports made rounds across online news media. The reports claimed President Buhari has promised to resign if his health doesn’t improve and it was easily going to sway the many Nigerians who are currently participating in a sit out demanding that the president resumes or resigns.

 

Rather than jump on the bandwagon by publishing the unconfirmed report, we decided to exercise our right to request information by reaching out to some of President Buhari’s media aides.

This article details the step-by-step process we took and the clarifications we got but we realised it may come across to some as a right exclusive to people in media, when in fact, it is the right of every Nigerian.

On May 28, 2011, the Freedom of Information Act was passed into law “to enable the public to access certain government information, in order to ensure transparency and accountability”. You can place requests to “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 subcommittees which are supported in whole or in part by public fund or which expends public fund”. Its limitations regardless, the FoI Act is a step further in holding public office holders accountable and keeping citizens in the loop.

The Freedom of Information Act does not come without exemptions. Public institutions have the right to refuse “if the information sought could compromise national security, the conduct of international affairs or trade secrets” or the information “is subject to legal privilege, medical privilege, journalistic privilege and any other professional privilege conferred by law”.

We reckon not many Nigerians are aware of this right and how to even go about it. We fully exercised it yesterday and we thought to share the simple “How To” with you.

• Orally– An applicant may make an oral request to an authorised official of a government or public institution, who must then reduce the application into writing and provide a copy of the written application to the applicant

• In writing

• Through a 3^rd party – Illiterate or disabled applicants who by virtue of their illiteracy or disability are unable to make an application for access to information or, may make that application through a third party

It’s that easy! And you have only 7 days to wait for your response, however in a situation where you’ve requested information with larger volume, the time limit may be stretched but not beyond another 7 days.