The
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has been inducted into
the “Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall of Shame” by Media Rights Agenda (MRA),
accusing the agency of carrying out its activities under an institutional cloak
of secrecy that has enabled corruption to flourish in the football sector in
Nigeria, frequently causing the country avoidable embarrassment, reports
ITREALMS.
Programme Manager, FOI at MRA, Mr Ridwan Sulaimon, told
ITREALMS in Lagos that “over the years,
the NFF has exhibited an intolerably high level of disregard for basic
principles of transparency and accountability in the mistaken belief that it is
above the Laws of Land and neither accountable to the Government nor the people
of Nigeria.”
According to Mr Sulaimon, an assessment of the NFF’s level
of compliance with the FOI Act shows that the institution failed woefully
across all the indices as it has been operating as if it has no business with
the FOI Act or with being transparent and accountable to Nigerians about its
dealings and activities.
He said “it is truly shameful that the NFF has not taken any
meaningful steps to comply with or implement the FOI Act in any way. More
specifically, it has not published either on its website or anywhere else, the
information that Section 2 of the Act requires all public institutions to
proactively publish and disseminate widely to members of the public through
various means, including print, electronic and online sources.”
Mr. Sulaimon accused the NFF of failing to publish even
routine information such as the name of its president, other officials or its
mandate as well as information relating to its contractual agreements and other
financial dealings with other institution, thereby carrying on its business in
secrecy and in total disregard of its duty to inform the public about its
operations.
According to him, “Under Section 29 of the FOI Act, the NFF
ought to have submitted seven annual reports on its implementation of the Act
to the Attorney-General of the Federation as of February 1, 2018. In reality, the institution only submitted
one report, for 2012, and has failed to submit the mandatory annual reports for
all other years till date.”
Mr. Sulaimon said: “As a result of the failure of the NFF to
submit its annual reports on its implementation of the FOI Act, as required by
Law, information on how many requests for information the institution has
received annually since 2011, how many of these it has processed and granted
and how many of the requests it denied each year, among others, are not
available anywhere, except for 2012.”
He noted, however, that “If our own recent experience at
Media Rights Agenda is anything to go by, the NFF apparently attaches no
importance to requests for information from the public and does not have a
track record of responsiveness to such requests.”
According to him, “Very recently, Media Rights Agenda wrote
a letter dated June 8, 2018, to the NFF asking it to provide us with a list of
footballers, coaches, other football officials as well as supporters,
government officials and their aides who travelled to Russia for the 2018 World
Cup and whose travel expenses were covered through public funds. We asked for
details of the sources of funds that the NFF had received relating to Nigeria’s
participation in the 2018 World Cup, the amount received from each source as
well as the total amount received, among others. The NFF did not even dignify
the request with a response, even if to simply acknowledge receipt and has till
date not provided us with the requested information.”
On Section 13 of the FOI Act which requires every public
institution to ensure the provision of appropriate training for its officials
on the public’s right of access to information and for the effective
implementation of the Act, Mr Sulaimon accused the NFF of repeated failure to
comply with the Section, saying that there is no indication that it has ever
bothered to provide any training in this regard for its officials and
personnel.
He also highlighted Section 2(3)(f) of the FOI Act, which
mandates every public institution to publish the title and address of an
appropriate officer to whom applications for information by the public should
be sent, and accused the NFF of also failing to comply with this requirement, citing
as evidence the fact that the title and address of the FOI Desk Officer for the
NFF is not published on its website or anywhere else as well as the fact that
no FOI Desk Officer for the NFF is listed in the Database of FOI Desk Officers
for Public Institutions compiled and published by the Office of the Attorney
General of the Federation.
Mr. Sulaimon therefore urged the President of the NFF, Mr
Amaju Pinnick, to take advantage of the current brief calm in the institution
to re-build its image by ensuring that it complies with all its duties and
obligations under the FOI Act and, more significantly, that it becomes
transparent and accountable to the Nigerian people.
He said: “The fact that Nigerians love football and desire
that the country remains a prominent member of the global football community
should not be mistaken by the NFF as a licence for it to abandon good
governance practices and principles in the management of football in Nigeria.
Indeed, we note that indiscipline, lack of transparency and accountability, and
corruption in the management of the sport have largely been responsible for
Nigeria’s inability to realize its full potential in this area and we would be
demanding a total re-evaluation of the terms of our continued engagement if there
is no noticeable change in behaviour.”
MRA launched the “FOI Hall of Shame” on July 3, 2017 to
focus attention on public officials and institutions that are undermining the
effectiveness of the FOI Act through their actions, inactions, utterances and decisions.
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