Court Declares ‘Freedom of Information Act’ Applicable To All States

No state should withhold information on its public expenditure if requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI), rules the Court of Appeal.

The Court ruled in an appeal filed by a journalist, Martins Alo, challenging an earlier ruling by the Ondo State High Court that the journalist had no right to request information on the state’s expenditure.

Mr Alo had in 2016 sued the Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly and Auditor-General of Ondo State for rejecting his request to access the 2012 and 2014 audited report on the state’s expenditure.

But ruling in the suit, Justice Williams Akintoroye of the High Court said the Freedom of Information Act was not applicable to states, hence he awarded N10, 000 as damages against the plaintiff.

Overturning the judgement, however, was a three-member panel at the Court of Appeal, comprising Justices Uzo Ndukwe-Anyanwu, Obande Ogbuinya and Ridwan Abdullahi, who rejected Mr Akintoroye’s ruling.

The panel ruled that “In a democratic dispensation, such as Nigeria’s, the citizens have been proclaimed the owners of sovereignty and mandates that place leaders in the saddle,” adding that the citizens have a right to know details of “expenditure of public funds generated from their taxes.”