NGO Urges Domestication Of FOI Act In Kaduna

A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Transparency and Accountability in Totality Initiative (TinT), has called on civil society organisations and other relevant stakeholders in Kaduna State to strengthen the advocacy for the domestication of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

TinT project officer, Musa Sulaiman made the call during a one-day town hall meeting on ‘Access to Information in Kaduna’, explaining that the essence of the meeting was to have on board the CSOs to understand the concept of FOI and take full advantage of it.

Sulaiman stressed the need to provide FOI desk officers in all the MDAs, adding that citizens also need to be urgently sensitized on the FOI Act.

TinT is supported by Palladium through USAID SCALE (Strengthening Civil Society and Local Engagements) project to advocate for enabling laws, policies and regulations that expand the civic space for increased citizens-state collaboration.

The policy advisor, Transparency and Centre, Muhammad Sani Kassim said that domestication of FOI in Kaduna would immensely improve service delivery.

He therefore tasked Governor Uba Sani and the state’s lawmakers to look at the FOI from the angle of development, saying that when access to data for citizens is democratised, it would lessen the operational cost, reduce maintenance and also cut M&E cost.