In 2011, Nigeria passed into law the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The law gave every Nigerian citizen regardless of education, status, or connection the legal right to demand information from any public institution. This includes government contracts, spending records, policy documents, meeting minutes. All of it, in principle, is accessible to anyone who asked. More than a decade later, a lot of Nigerians have never heard of it. And most public institutions behave as though it doesn’t exist.
Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act did not arrive quickly or easily. The journey from idea to law took nearly two decades of sustained advocacy, false starts, and political resistance. The push began in earnest in the early 1990s, driven largely by civil society organisations, journalists, and democracy advocates who watched public resources disappear into opacity with no mechanism for accountability. The Media Rights Agenda and other press freedom groups were among the earliest campaigners, recognising that a free press without access to public information was a press without teeth.
A bill was introduced in Nigeria’s National Assembly in 1999, following the end of military rule. After twelve years of delays and resistance, it became law in May 2011 under President Goodluck Jonathan, marking Nigeria as one of few African nations with a statutory right to information. The FOI Act requires public institutions to publish information proactively and respond to requests within seven days. It covers all levels of government and relevant private organizations. Though strong on paper, the law has been mostly ignored in practice.
Why Freedom of Information Matters
Freedom of information is essential for accountability. When governments restrict access to their actions, they can act unchecked. FOI laws promote transparency by default and allow citizens, journalists, and civil society to enforce openness. FOI supports investigative journalism, enables research for policy solutions, and empowers communities to monitor decisions affecting them like contracts and budgets. It also provides evidence for legal action. In Nigeria, where corruption thrives in secrecy, FOI disrupts information imbalance without needing new agencies or laws. Citizens and institutions just need to use the rights already available.
The Implementation Gap: Reasons for the Limited Use of FOI in Nigeria
Despite its promise, the FOI Act has had limited impact. Requests go unanswered. Public institutions deny access to information without legal basis. The courts have been slow to enforce the Act. And most Nigerians remain unaware that the law exists at all. Several interconnected factors explain this gap between the law on paper and the law in practice.
Low public awareness. The most basic problem is that most Nigerians simply do not know they have this right. Civic education around the FOI Act has been minimal. The government has done little to publicise the law, and no sustained national campaign has brought it to broad public attention. A right that people do not know they have is a right that cannot be exercised.
Institutional resistance. Many public institutions treat information requests as threats rather than legal obligations. Civil servants who have long operated under cultures of secrecy with some inherited from military governance, some simply self-protective have not been retrained or incentivised to comply. Some institutions charge prohibitive fees for information. Others delay indefinitely or simply do not respond. The deterrent for non-compliance is weak.
Weak enforcement. The FOI Act allows citizens to take non-compliant institutions to the Federal High Court, but litigation is expensive, slow, and inaccessible to most Nigerians. The Act does not establish a dedicated oversight body like an Information Commissioner or equivalent with the power to enforce compliance without recourse to the courts. This is a structural weakness that many other jurisdictions have addressed and Nigeria has not.
Capacity gaps. Many public institutions lack the record management systems to locate and provide information even when they are willing to do so. Years of underinvestment in public sector record-keeping mean that the infrastructure for compliance is often simply absent.
Limited use by journalists and civil society. The FOI Act’s most consistent users in any jurisdiction are journalists, researchers, and advocacy organisations. In Nigeria, uptake within these communities has been growing but remains modest, partly due to awareness gaps and partly due to the frustration of making requests that receive no response. When the law appears not to work, people stop trying.
FOI as a Foundation for Better Governance
The costs of non-utilisation are not abstract. Every unanswered FOI request represents information that could have exposed wasteful spending, informed a policy debate, enabled accountability journalism, or simply allowed a citizen to understand a decision that affected their life. The benefits of a genuinely functioning FOI regime, by contrast, are concrete and well-documented across jurisdictions that have made it work. Countries with strong information access cultures consistently score better on transparency and governance indices. Active FOI regimes are associated with reduced corruption, improved public service delivery, and greater public trust in institutions. When citizens can see how decisions are made and how money is spent, institutions behave differently not because officials become more virtuous, but because the cost of misconduct rises.
In Nigeria, a fully fnctional FOI Act would directly support the fight against the kinds of corruption that have most damaged public life: procurement fraud, budgetary manipulation, and the systematic extraction of public resources by connected interests. It would provide journalists and civil society with the evidentiary foundation to do accountability work that currently relies on leaks, anonymous sources, and fragments of information. It would also shift the relationship between citizens and the state. Nigeria’s governance culture has historically been extractive with the state taking from citizens, not the reverse. A functional FOI regime begins to invert that relationship, establishing a norm in which the state owes citizens information and citizens have the standing to demand it.
What It Would Take to Change Things
Turning the FOI Act into a practical tool for accountability requires coordinated efforts. Public awareness should be boosted by both civil groups and the government through civic education. Strengthening enforcement is crucial; establishing an independent Information Commissioner, as seen in other countries, offers accessible compliance. Legislative reforms are needed to close loopholes and impose penalties. Journalists and civil society should make systematic use of FOI, with successful requests and strategic litigation driving compliance. Upgrading digital infrastructure will enable proactive publication of information, foster open data practices and improve institutional accountability.
The Role of Freedom of Information in Building an Informed Society
Freedom of information is much more than a technical matter or a procedural formality reserved for lawyers and journalists. It serves as the legal cornerstone of an informed citizenry, providing the essential mechanism that allows the public to know what actions are taken in their name and how their resources are being used. This access is critical to ensuring transparency and accountability within institutions.
Nigeria established this foundation in 2011 with the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act. The challenge now is to build upon this progress: to transform the FOI Act into a law that Nigerians are aware of, actively use, and expect their institutions to honour. Achieving this requires participation from civil society, journalists, researchers, and lawyers. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of citizens themselves, who possess more power than they often realize, to demand and use this right. Both the information and the legal framework exist. What remains is the collective resolve to utilize them.
Free Knowledge Africa is dedicated to broadening access to African knowledge by promoting open information, digitizing resources, and strengthening institutional capacities. If you have an interest in FOI advocacy, open data, or improving knowledge accessibility in Africa, kindly reach out.
