SECTOR 1 Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 2.7 (2008: 1.1; 2011: 1.9) 1.7 Public information is easily accessible, guaranteed by law, to all citizens. Nigeria’s 2011 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is considered the most important piece of media regulation enacted in recent years. The Act guarantees public access to information and defines conditions under which citizens can enjoy the right to know. It is “an Act to make public records and information more freely available, provide for public access to public records and information, protect public records and information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy, protect serving public officer from adverse consequence of disclosing certain kinds of official information without authorization and establish procedures for the achievement of those purposes and; for related matters.”3 The FOI Act has helped to ‘push the frontiers”. However, there are “challenges in compliance”. Some government institutions are still reluctant to honour FOI requests. The National Assembly, for instance, has repeatedly refused to honour requests to reveal the salaries of lawmakers. In another example, a university is still to respond to several requests to confirm if it conferred a PhD on former president Goodluck Jonathan, as the former leader claims. Some State Governments have simply refused to acknowledge the law. Political authorities in Benue, Enugu, Kaduna, Lagos, Ogun and Oyo States, for instance, had insisted on passing a complementary law before beginning to implement the FOI Act. To date, however, no such laws have been passed by these states. Judges in different States have given different interpretations on the scope of the law and whether or not it was binding on States. In Oyo State, a court ruled that it was enforceable in the State. In Lagos, a judge said it was only binding on Federal officials. The absence of any decision so far in appeals on cases related to whether 3 FOI Act introductory notes (2011) AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NIGERIA 2015 19