CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Enwerem, Patrick Chinedu |
|---|---|
| Title | The Right to Know and the Implementation of Freedom of Information Legislation: Case Studies of Nigeria and South Africa |
| Summary | Africa remains a continent with huge potentials but due to challenges emanating from authoritarian regimes, corruption, conflicts etc, these potentials are currently left untapped. This has led to outcomes like human rights violations, political instability, poverty, unemployment, etc. However, any tempt geared towards analyzing and projecting solutions to the numerous challenges facing Africa should include the two biggest economies of the continent; Nigeria and South Africa. Hence, this research work sets out to review the two freedom of information (FOI) legislations operating in the two countries; Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act of 2011 and South Africa’s Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000. There is no doubt that if well implemented, these legislations have the capacity to empower citizens of both countries in ways that can help ameliorate the situation. In order to achieved the above objective, The research critically examines why Nigeria’s FOIA and South Africa’s PAIA fail to actualize their set objectives of giving citizens of both countries access to public information and in the case of South Africa including information held by private bodies, particularly as they relate to the right to access information held by public and private bodies. It highlights the strength and weaknesses of the FOIA and PAIA in terms of their provisions as well as the shortcomings in their implementation, particularly, on the non-compliance by Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Through the use of content analysis of relevant books, articles/journals, newspapers, websites and other relevant available information, the research brought to the fore the lack of proper implementation of the legislations. FOI Acts supervising governmental agencies and offices in both countries, particularly, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) in Nigeria and The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in South Africa were found to be non proactive in carrying out their statutory responsibilities of ensuring full implementation and enforcement of the laws. Also, public institutions in both countries by their actions in dealing with requests were found to have contributed immensely to the implementation challenges confronting these legislations. At the end, policy and practice recommendations that border on the following; ways government and its agencies could be more proactive in the implementation of the Acts, adequate training for designated officers, less complicated procedures in requests for information and reviews, ways to ensure maximum disclosure, the need for designated officers to be competence in conflict resolution etc were provided. However, considering the fact that all the 13 countries in African that have enacted FOI laws face similar challenges, these recommendations equally target any of these countries that may be in need of improvement in its FOI laws as well as those that are in the process of enacting FOI laws. |
| Supervisor | Sejal Parmar |
| Department | Legal Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/enwerem_patrick.pdf |
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