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: Score of previous years: ✓ ✓ ✓✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓✓✓ 2.8 2008: 1.1; 2011: 1.9; 2015: 2.7 1.7 Public information is easily accessible, guaranteed by law, to the public The signing of the FOI Act in 2011 after years of intense advocacy was considered a turning point in the story of the Nigerian media. The Act grants citizens the ‘right of access to records’ along with requirements for public services and agencies to comply with FOI requests. Under the Act, citizens can also turn to the courts to force public information holders to comply with their requests. After eight years, the FOI Act has yet to demonstrate a perceptible difference in citizen’s ability to access public information and records. Panellists said multiple factors make the FOI ineffective. The top factor being the unwillingness of public services to comply with the law. One panellist said: If they do not outrightly refuse or claim they do not have the information you are seeking, they make you wait forever. A lot of bottlenecks have been put in place to ensure that it is hard to get information. Frequently, you are asked to write to a more superior official, who will send you to an even more superior official, who is usually not very reachable. They don’t tell you that “we cannot give you this information” but create conditions that make the process burdensome. In addition to administrative hurdles, federal and state authorities, as well as the defence forces, have resisted the FOI Act since its enactment. According to one panellist: In 2015, 36 out of 217 FOI requests that had been made were denied.8 In a May 2018 case, a human rights lawyer was denied information on fuel imports by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. The corporation argued that it was established “by law to manage the commercial interests of Nigeria in the oil and gas sector of the economy 8 See www.foia.justice.gov.ng. Last accessed on 15 August 2019. 15 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NIGERIA 2019