Access To Information: Abia Tops 2024 Ranking Of Niger Delta States
By Gift Eguavoen
Abia State has emerged the leading state in access to publicly held information in the Niger Delta, a new ranking for 2024 has revealed.
The ranking, conducted by Policy Alert and its partners under the umbrella of the Niger Delta Open Government Observatory (NOGO), was presented last week at an event in Abuja to mark the 2024 International Day for Universal Access to Information usually marked on September 28 each year.
A statement issued by Policy Alert on the sidelines of the National FOI Ranking organised by the Public Private Development Centre (PPDC) noted that the rankings were based on public institutions’ pro-activeness, level of disclosure and level of responsiveness to FOI requests.
The rankings, which targeted 180 public institutions in the nine Niger Delta states under focus, had a 1.7% response rate. The rankings recorded 44.4% average level of responsiveness (an indicator that measures the response time-frame against the provision of the FOI Act).
Similarly, average level of disclosure across the nine states stood at 11.11% with Abia State providing above 50% and less than 80% of the requested information. The ranking also revealed that the states performed the weakest on proactive disclosure, which measures the types of information provided proactively on websites of public institutions, with an average performance of 8.33 percent.
“Overall, Abia State ranked first in the FOI ranking exercise, while Delta and Imo came second, with Cross River and Edo jointly in third position. Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Ondo and Rivers states came at the bottom of the ranking,” according to a statement by Policy Alert.
Speaking on the development, Faith Paulinus, Policy Alert’s Programme Lead, Anti-Corruption and Governance Reforms, said, “Access to Information is the lifeblood of democracy, governance and development. It empowers citizens to participate meaningfully in shaping decisions that affect their lives while being able to ask questions and hold public leadership accountable.”
She added that the organization is optimistic that the Niger Delta FOI Ranking will lead to a race to the top on access to information in the Niger Delta region.
Also speaking at the event, Lucy Abagi, CEO of the Public Private Development Centre (PPDC) which presented a national #FOIRanking and also partnered with NOGO on the sub-national rankings, said the effort was aimed at shaping Nigeria’s governance future and built on transparency, accountability, and responsiveness.
She added that the #FOIRanking initiative embodies the partners’ commitment to these values, “ensuring government agencies answer to the people.”
The report revealed a poor state of access to information by States’ Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in the Niger Delta region.
It recommended that states in the region, which were yet to, should enact FOI laws to deepen the legal landscape for access to information at the sub-national level. It also called for the full digitization of public records for seamless retrieval and access to proactive information disclosure.
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